For twenty-five years I ran my own anti-money laundering consultancy. I am now a full-time author, and my obsession with understanding the mechanics and motivations of financial crime has only grown.

I have spent years haunting the streets of Regency London, in the company of magistrates' constable Sam Plank. He is the narrator of my series of historical financial crime novels set in consecutive years in the 1820s - just before Victoria came to the throne, and in the interesting policing period after the Bow Street Runners and before the Metropolitan Police. The fourth Sam Plank novel - "Portraits of Pretence" - was given the "Book of the Year 2017" award by influential book review website Discovering Diamonds. And the fifth - "Faith, Hope and Trickery" - was shortlisted for the Selfies Award 2019. I am now working on a new series of five novels set in Cambridge in the 1820s, narrated by a university constable called Gregory Hardiman. The first in this series - "Ostler" - was published in August 2023 and nominated for the Selfies Award 2024.

I am a practised speaker (my working life involved a lot of staff training) and I can put together an interesting talk on the mechanics (and finances) of self-publishing, or the writing of series, or historical research for writers, or the Regency history of policing or finance, or any combination of the above! My speaking style is organised but casual, and I love getting questions all the way through my talks, which can often take us off in interesting directions.