Multi-award winning author M. W. Craven was born in Carlisle but grew up in Newcastle. He joined the army at sixteen, leaving ten years later to complete a degree in social work. Seventeen years after taking up a probation officer role in Cumbria, at the rank of assistant chief officer, he became a full-time author. The Puppet Show, the first book in the critically acclaimed, best-selling Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw series, was published by Little, Brown and went on to win the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger in 2019. Black Summer, the second in the series, was longlisted for the Gold Dagger as was book three, The Curator. Dead Ground won the CWA Steel Dagger in 2022 and book five, The Botanist, won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year in 2023. Dead Ground and 2022’s The Botanist were both Sunday Times bestsellers. The series has now been translated into twenty-seven languages. Fearless, the first thriller in the new US-set, Ben Koenig series, was published in June 2023 by Flatiron Books in the US and by Little, Brown in the UK. Fearless will soon be a major TV series. M. W. Craven lives in Carlisle with his wife, Joanne. When he isn't talking nonsense in the pub, he can usually be found at punk gigs and writing festivals up and down the country.