The First Murder

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 is author of the highly regarded Crowner John series of historical mysteries, based on the first coroner for Devon in the twelfth century; and of the Dr Richard Pryor series.

Ian Morson is the author of an acclaimed series of historical mysteries featuring the thirteenth-century Oxford-based detective, William Falconer, and a brand-new series featuring Venetian crime solver, Nick Zuliani.

Philip Gooden is the author of the Nick Revill series, a sequence of historical mysteries set in Shakespearean London, including Sleep of Death and Death of Kings, and also writes 19th century mysteries, most recently The Ely Testament. The author of various non-fiction books on English, his newest title is Idiomantics, and he blogs on language at www.philipgooden.com. 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 Mystery in the Minster and Murder by the Book. In addition, she writes a series set in Restoration London, featuring Thomas Chaloner; the most recent book is The Piccadilly Plot. She also writes historical mysteries 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.