Michael Marshall Smith is a novelist and screenwriter. Only Forward, his groundbreaking first novel, won the Philip K. Dick and August Derleth Awards. Its critically acclaimed successors Spares and One Of Us were optioned by major Hollywood studios.

He has since written the internationally bestselling novels The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead and Blood of Angels, and his menacing thriller, The Intruders, was adapted as a major BBC television series. He lives in California with his wife, son and two cats.