My latest novel is the literary historical 'In Leicester Fields', a dark and compelling tale of guilt and corruption, murder and excess set in Georgian London's world of high art.

Also recently published has been my first crime novel ‘The Capo’s Daughter’ (Rampart Books).

My debut novel, The Snake Oil Dickens Man, supposes that Charles Dickens sired a son in America and tells of how Billy Talbot hooks up with a charismatic conman called Hope Scattergood to find his famous father. Sold to 4th Estate, Snake Oil was then successfully auctioned at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

A second novel, The Edge of the Crowd (runner up for the Encore Prize for Best Second Novel), sucks readers into the darkest depths of 19th Century London's poverty-stricken slumlands. I revisited this milieu for the non-fiction social history, Crime and Punishment in Victorian London (Pen & Sword). 

Losing It, The Growing Pains of a Teenage Vampire (Lodestone Books) is a darkly comic novel about growing up, love, sex and death. There are actually no vampires in this.

I spent 11 years contributing a literary books column to the Daily Mail and have written for a wide range of newspapers and periodicals. Most recently, I edited Speciality Food and Global Franchise magazines.