Ruth Downie

After reading too much Jane Austen, Ruth left university with an English degree and a plan to get married and live happily ever after. As a backup she learned typing and shorthand, in the mistaken belief that people would always need secretaries and that she might be quite good at it. Finally escaping into fiction, she won the Fay Weldon section of the BBC’s End of Story competition in 2004.

The first book in her crime series featuring Roman Army medic Ruso and his British partner Tilla was a New York Times bestseller, and The Times recommended it as one of their ‘Seven best thrillers for Christmas’. The eighth, Memento Mori, was published in 2018, and a novella, Prima Facie, followed in 2019.

Ruth tries to spend as long as possible every summer wielding an archaeological trowel in search of inspiration.