Author
Mike Ripley
Mike Ripley is the author of 21 novels including the award-winning 'Angel' series of comedy thrillers and one of the few authors to win the Crime Writers' Last Laugh Award twice. From 1989 to 2008 he was crime fiction critic for the Daily Telegraph and then the Birmingham Post, reviewing over 950 crime novels and co-edited three volumes of 'Fresh Blood' stories by new British writers, including Ian Rankin, Lee Child, Ken Bruen, Charlie Higson and Christopher Brookmyre. He was also a scriptwriter on the BBC's series "Lovejoy".
Professionally, he read history at university, trained as a journalist and went into public relations, working for the Brewers Society in London, promoting British beer and pubs, for 21 years. As part of his obligatory mid-life crisis, he gave up life in the big city and retrained as an archaeologist, working mostly on Romano-British sites in East Anglia.