Laura Thompson attended stage school and aged sixteen was awarded an exhibition to read English at Oxford. Her first book, THE DOGS: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF GREYHOUND RACING, won the Somerset Maugham Award. Her 2003 study of Nancy Mitford, LIFE IN A COLD CLIMATE, was followed by AGATHA CHRISTIE: A MYSTERIOUS LIFE, the first major Christie biography for more than twenty years, shortlisted for an Edgar Allan Poe award. Both were reissued in 2020. She has written two acclaimed true crime books: A DIFFERENT CLASS OF MURDER: THE STORY OF LORD LUCAN and REX V EDITH THOMPSON, a re-examination of the famous 1922 Thompson-Bywaters murder case, shortlisted for a CWA award. The Land Lady, a memoir of her publican grandmother, which she is currently adapting for screen, was a three-time book of the year in 2018. The Six, a group biography of the Mitford sisters, became a New York Times best seller in 2016. Her latest books are Heiress: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies, published in US paperback in 2023, and Au Revoir Now Darlint: the Letters of Edith Thompson, also 2023. Recent TV appearances include Great British Railway Journeys with Michael Portillo in 2020 and, in 2022, The Cotswolds and Beyond with Pam AyresS and Alan Carr's Adventures with Agatha Christie.