Ashley Dyer

Ashley Dyer is the penname of novelist, Margaret Murphy, working in consultation with forensics expert and Vera and Shetland adviser, Helen Pepper. Splinter in the Blood is their debut novel as a writing duo. The sequel, The Cutting Room, was published by William Morrow in June 2019.

Margaret Murphy is a former Writing Fellow and Reading Round Lector for the Royal Literary Fund, a past Chair of the Crime Writers Association, and the founder of Murder Squad. Under her own name she has published ten psychological suspense and police procedural novels in the UK, as well as a forensic trilogy as A.D. Garrett. A Short Story Dagger winner, she has also been shortlisted for the First Blood critics’ award for crime fiction and the CWA Dagger in the Library. Helen Pepper is a Senior University Lecturer in Policing. She has been an analyst, Forensic Scientist, CSI, Crime Scene Manager and police trainer, and has co-authored, as well as contributed to, professional policing texts. She was a long-serving CWA Non-Fiction Dagger judge and has worked as forensic consultant on several hit television series, including Vera, Shetland, and Bancroft.