Joseph James Walcroft was born in 1959 in Ipswich, Suffolk, England but has lived in Colchester, Essex since 1985. He qualified in Mathematics and Software Engineering at Brunel University and the University of East Anglia. His primary career of thirty years in Information Technology culminated in project managing large-scale financial software developments in the City of London. He subsequently trained as a teacher and still provides private tuition in Mathematics up to Further A-Level.

With no plans to retire, Killing the Chorister is the first novel of a trilogy and his debut as a novelist. As well as writing fiction, Joseph enjoys researching Genealogy and History.