Mark Billingham has twice won the Theakston's Old Peculier Award for Crime Novel of the Year, and has also won a Sherlock Award for the Best Detective created by a British writer.

Each of the novels featuring Detective Inspector Tom Thorne has been a Sunday Times bestseller.

Sleepyhead and Scaredy Cat were made into a hit TV series on Sky 1 starring David Morrissey as Thorne, and a new series based on the novels In the Dark and Time of Death will be broadcast on BBC1 in 2017.

Mark lives in north London with his wife and two children.

Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV's Vera and BBC One's Shetland. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez - characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold millions of copies worldwide.

Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of 'Murder Squad', working with other British northern writers to promote crime fiction. In 2006 Ann was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (CWA Gold Dagger) for Best Crime Novel, for Raven Black, the first book in her Shetland series.

Some of her other novels include the popular Vera Stanhope series, The Crow Trap, Telling Tales, Hidden Depths, Silent Voices, The Glass Room, Harbour Street and The Moth Catcher. In 2012 she was inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Ann lives in North Tyneside.