The False Virgin

The Medieval Murderers

A small group of historical mystery writers, all members of the Crime Writers’ Association, who promote their work by giving informal talks and discussions at libraries, bookshops and literary festivals.

Bernard Knight is a former Home Office pathologist and professor of forensic medicine who has been publishing novels, non-fiction, radio and television drama and documentaries for more than forty years. He currently writes the highly regarded Crowner John series of historical mysteries, based on the first coroner for Devon in the twelfth century; the fourteenth of which, A Plague of Heretics, has recently been published by Simon & Schuster.

Ian Morson is the author of an acclaimed series of historical mysteries featuring the thirteenth-century Oxford-based detective, William Falconer, a series featuring medieval Venetian crime solver, Nick Zuliani, and many short stories set in various historical periods.

Philip Gooden is the author of the Nick Revill series, a sequence of historical mysteries set in Elizabethan and Jacobean London, during the time of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The latest titles are Sleep of Death and Death of Kings. He also writes 19th century mysteries, most recently The Durham Disappearance, as well as non-fiction books on language. Philip was chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association in 2007-8.

Susanna Gregory is the author of the Matthew Bartholomew series of mystery novels, set in fourteenth century Cambridge, the most recent of which are Murder by the Book and The Lost Abbot. In addition, she writes a series set in Restoration London, featuring Thomas Chaloner; the most recent book is Murder in St James’s Park. She also writes historical mysteries with her husband under the name of Simon Beaufort.

Karen Maitland writes stand-alone, dark medieval thrillers. She is the author of Company of Liars and The Owl Killers. Her most recent medieval thrillers are The Gallows Curse, a tale of treachery and sin under the brutal reign of English King John, and Falcons of Fire and Ice set in Portugal and Iceland amid the twin terrors of the Inquisition and Reformation.