Authors

Wladyslaw Szpilman studied piano at the Warsaw conservatory and subsequently at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. After completing his studies in 1933, he returned to Warsaw where he quickly became a celebrated pianist and a composer of both classical and popular music. From 1936 until the German Invasion and occupation of Poland he was a pianist at Polish Radio. From 1945 to 1963 he was Music Director of Polish Radio while at the same time he performed as a pianist in Europe. In 1963, he founded the Warsaw Piano Quintet with which he performed worldwide until 1966. His bestselling memoir The Pianist was written immediately after the war and tells the harrowing true story of his miraculous survival during WWII. Wladyslaw Szpilman's novel was made into a film by Roman Polanski in 2003 that went on to win the Palme d’Or, three Oscars and various other film prizes.

Felix Taylor was born in London in 1980, and has lived there on and off ever since. After studying at the University of Sussex in Brighton, he worked briefly in the music industry and in a number of other jobs before a ten-year stint in the-cut-and thrust world of advertising. Always a keen reader and a lover of jokes and stories, he has tried his hand at stand-up and both written for and participated in live sketch shows such as News revue. As the son of a French mother and English father, he is one of the very few who appreciate the merits of both Marmite and the mysterious andouillette of Eastern and Northern France. Serve Cold is his first novel.  

John Watson specialises in marine adventure tales. His first novel, The Iron Man, was followed up by The Final Act. Both novels feature battleships with which he remains fascinated and is currently working hard to produce a follow-up in the same marine genre. He also writes under the name John Wilding. Cardinal Sin, his first under this name, is a gripping conspiracy thriller surrounding the election of a new Pope within the Catholic church. John combines writing novels with a successful career in the marketing industry. He lives in Sussex with his wife and two children.

Anne Zouroudi was born in Lincolnshire and grew up in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. For some years, she pursued a successful business career which included working in the US on New York's Wall Street and in Denver, Colorado. In the early 1990's she opted out of the commercial world and moved to one of Greece's beautiful islands, where she married a fisherman. Anne is the creator of Hermes Diaktoros, an unconventional investigator whose origins are as much a puzzle as the mysteries he solves. Her Mysteries of the Greek Detective novels are based on the Seven Deadly Sins and though listed as crime novels and with crime at their heart, might more accurately be categorised as Morality Tales. All Anne's books are inspired by Greece's people, its culture and its myths. Anne's work has received wide critical acclaim. She has been nominated for two national prizes and her novel The Whispers of Nemesis won the 2011 East Midlands Book Award. She currently lives in Derbyshire's Peak District.