Caitlin Davies

Caitlin Davies is the author of six novels and eight non-fiction books, many of which have a criminal theme.

The Ghost of Lily Painter (Hutchinson, 2011) was based on the true story of two Edwardian baby farmers, while Bad Girls: The Rebels and Renegades of Holloway Prison (John Murray, 2018) was the first comprehensive history of Europe’s most infamous female jail. It was nominated for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, 2019.

Her book Queens of the Underworld; a journey into the lives of female crooks, traced the careers of professional women crooks from the 17th century to today (The History Press, 2022).

‘A riveting dive into the criminal underworld and the women who queened it there’ – Helena Kennedy QC

Caitlin started her writing career as a human rights journalist in Botswana, during which she was twice arrested and put on trial. She is a trained teacher, who has worked in schools, universities, prisons and community centres, as well as tutoring for the Arvon Foundation. She is also a mentor with Story Board, www.storyboardwriter.com, which runs online consultations for writers of both fiction and non-fiction.

She is currently a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at Kent & Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust. She lives in Kent.

Caitlin’s latest book, Private Inquiries: The Secret History of Female Sleuths, will be published by The History Press on October 12, 2023.

It tells the true tales of female private eyes from the 1850s to the present, including Annette Kerner, the ‘Mrs Sherlock Holmes’ of the 1950s who claimed to be one of the first members of the Crime Writers’ Association. Caitlin trained as a private investigator as part of her research, but discovered she was not as good at shadowing as she thought she’d be.

‘Private Inquiries is a must-read – a riveting mythbuster, with its revelations of the real histories of women PIs,’ Val McDermid

‘Intriguing and informative, Private Inquiries is a fascinating piece of detective work,’ Martin Edwards