About the Author

Author of four murder mystery series, featuring Den Cooper, Devon police detective,  Drew Slocombe, Undertaker; Thea Osborne, house sitter in the Cotswolds and now Persimmon Brown, Lake District florist. Also "ghost writer" of the novels based on the ITV series Rosemary and Thyme.

As for why I do it, well, I always wanted to write - from early childhood, I have filtered everything through the written word. Nothing and nobody is entirely safe from my habit of collecting anecdotes and experiences to be processed into a novel. However, the Cotswold series marks a change from this habit. The books are set in real villages (Duntisbourne Abbots, Frampton Mansell, Blockley, Temple Guiting, Lower Slaughter, Cold Aston and Hampnett, Broad Campden, Snowshill and Winchcombe - the setting for the 2013 title and a kind of "anti research" has been employed. I have made sure I never speak to anybody from those villages, so nobody can claim to be featured in one of the novels. I do make sure I visit all the pubs, and walk many of the footpaths.

I grew up on farms, first in Cheshire, then in Devon. It was a childhood full of powerful elemental experiences. Cruelty, death, frustration alternated with idyllic summer days, the teamwork of the harvest, the delight of the young animals. No two days were quite the same. Some of these memories have found their way into A Dirty Death, my first novel.

I live in rural Herefordshire, on a smallholding situated close to the beautiful Black Mountains. I have Cotswold sheep and saddleback pigs - and I produce all my own meat, as well as large quantities of excellent wool. Evenings are spent spinning, knitting and weaving, and commissions will be taken for big warm pure wool throws and blankets.  Recently I've added alpaca to the stock of fleece, which makes gorgeous baby blankets.