Cath Staincliffe

Cath Staincliffe is a best-selling novelist, radio playwright and the creator of ITV’s hit series, Blue Murder. Her debut Looking For Trouble launched private eye Sal, a single parent juggling work and home, onto Manchester’s mean streets. It was short listed for the CWA’s New Blood Dagger and serialised on BBC Radio 4. Cath has published a further seven Sal Kilkenny mysteries.

Cath’s stand-alone novels tell stories of ordinary families caught up in extraordinary events, giving a voice to victims, the bereaved, survivors and witnesses. They cover topics ranging from assisted dying, facing a terrorist attack to appearing as a witness and restorative justice. The Girl in the Green Dress was inspired by her experience as the parent of a transgender child.

The Fells is the first outing for DI Leo Donovan and DC Shan Young set in the stunning landscape of the Yorkshire Dales. When the skeleton of a long missing student is discovered deep in underground caves, Leo and Shan Young fight to unearth the truth about her killer, navigating a labyrinth of secrets and lies.

Cath’s radio work includes the three-part thriller, Undercover, where a police officer masquerades as a nanny to find out the truth about a missing woman, and Legacy, featuring brother and sister heir hunters. Cath was a writer on Danny Brocklehurst’s detective drama Stone.

The Lost Girls of St Ann’s was a move away from crime. A family saga, rooted in Cath’s experience as an adoptee growing up in the 1960s, it captures the loss that remains for everyone at the heart of adoption. Cath’s own story, of being re-united with her Irish birth family and seven brothers and sisters, featured in the television documentary Finding Cath from RTE.

Cath has been short listed (three times) for the CWA Dagger in the Library, and twice for the Short Story Dagger. In 2012 Cath was joint winner of the Short Story Dagger. Letters To My Daughter’s Killer was selected for Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club in 2014 and featured on ITV3’s Crime Thriller Club. Cath was a joint winner of the WGGB Best Radio Drama Award 2019 for Stone S7. Running Out Of Road was short-listed for the eDunnit best novel Award at CrimeFest 2022.

Cath is a founder member of Murder Squad, a virtual collective of northern crime writers. An avid reader, she likes hill-walking, messing about in the garden and dancing (with far more enthusiasm than grace).