Colin Graham is a trained hotelier who became a stockjobber instead. Retired now, he put a history degree at the Open University on hold to write this book. He is married to Jenny, a teacher, and he has two sons—Ross, who is a Ph.D. student in California and Jamie, who is a biodiversity consultant based in Cambridge and London. Of Scottish and Northern English extraction, he is a cyclist and hiker, as well as having a keen interest in the arts and travel. This is his first published novel.