The Samaritan

A K Benedict read English at Cambridge and studied creative writing at Sussex. She composed film and television soundtracks, as well as performing as a musician before becoming a full-time writer in 2012. She now writes novels, drama, poetry and short stories, and lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford. Find out more at www.akbenedict.com or follow her on Twitter @ak_benedict

Alison Belsham initially started writing with the ambition of becoming a screenwriter-and in 2000 was commended for her visual storytelling in the Orange Prize for Screenwriting. In 2001 she was shortlisted in a BBC Drama Writer competition. Life and children intervened but, switching to fiction, in 2009 her novel Domino was selected for the prestigious Adventures in Fiction mentoring scheme. In 2016 she pitched her first crime novel, The Tattoo Thief, at the Pitch Perfect event at the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival and was judged the winner.

Andrew Pyper was born in Stratford, Ontario. He received a BA and an MA in English Literature from McGill University in Montreal, as well as a law degree from the University of Toronto. Although called to the bar in 1996, he has never practised law. Andrew is the author of a string of bestselling novels, including LOST GIRLS, which won the Arthur Ellis Award, and THE DEMONOLOGIST, which won the 2014 International Thriller Writers Award for Best Hardcover Novel. Find out more at www.andrewpyper.com or follow him on Twitter @andrewpyper

Ben Aaronovitch is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling PC Peter Grant series of novels (Rivers of London, Moon Over Soho, Whispers Under Ground, Broken Homes, Foxglove Summer and the upcoming The Hanging Tree).He was born and raised in London, and his love for the city is reflected throughout the series. Ben has also previously written for television and worked as a bookseller.He still resides in London, and is currently working on his next novel. Find out more on his website www.the-folly.com, or follow him on Twitter @Ben_Aaronovitch.

Camilla Ceder (born 1976) has studied social science and psychotherapy, and besides being an author she also works with counselling and social work. FROZEN MOMENT is her debut novel.http://pinterest.com/millanceder/

Den Patrick was born in Dorset in 1975 and shares a birthday with Bram Stoker. He has at various times been a comics editor, burlesque reviewer, bookseller and Games Workshop staffer. Anything to avoid getting a real job in fact.He lives and works in London. His first three books for Gollancz, the War Manuals, were released in Autumn 2013. His first novel, THE BOY WITH THE PORCELAIN BLADE, he first in the Erebus Sequence, was published in Spring 2014.http://www.denpatrick.com/

George Pelecanos was born in Washington, D.C. in 1957. He worked as a line cook, dishwasher, bartender, and woman's shoe salesman before publishing his first novel in 1992. Pelecanos is the author of twenty books set in and around Washington, D.C.: A Firing Offense, Nick's Trip, Shoedog, Down By the River Where the Dead Men Go, The Big Blowdown, King Suckerman, The Sweet Forever, Shame the Devil, Right as Rain, Hell to Pay, Soul Circus, Hard Revolution, Drama City, The Night Gardener, The Turnaround, The Way Home, The Cut, What It Was, The Double, and The Martini Shot. He has been the recipient of the Raymond Chandler award in Italy, the Falcon award in Japan, and the Grand Prix Du Roman Noir in France. Hell to Pay and Soul Circus were awarded the 2003 and 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. The Turnaround won the Hammett Prize for literary excellence in the field of crime writing. His fiction has appeared in Playboy, Esquire, and the collections Unusual Suspects, Best American Mystery Stories of 1997, Measures of Poison, Best American Mystery Stories of 2002, Men From Boys, and Murder at the Foul Line. He served as editor on the collections D.C. Noir and D.C. Noir 2: The Classics, as well as The Best Mystery Stories of 2008. He is an award-winning essayist who has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, GQ, Sight and Sound, Uncut, Mojo, and numerous other publications. Esquire magazine called him "the poet laureate of the D.C. crime world." In Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King wrote that Pelecanos is "perhaps the greatest living American crime writer." Pelecanos would like to point out that Mr. King used the word "perhaps." Pelecanos was a producer, writer, and story editor for the acclaimed HBO dramatic series, The Wire, winner of the Peabody Award, the AFI Award, and the Edgar. He was nominated for an Emmy for his writing on that show. He was a writer and co-producer on the World War II miniseries The Pacific, produced by Steven Spielberg, and most recently worked as a writer and Executive Producer on the HBO series Treme. Pelecanos lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is at work on his next novel.