Jo Bannister was born in the north of England and lived in the English Midlands before settling in Northern Ireland. She spent twenty years as a newspaper reporter, feature writer and editor before ignoring the advice and giving up her day job. She is the author of more than 40 novels, most of them crime thrillers, published in London, New York and elsewhere. Her work has been recognised by a number of award committees. Her latest book “Dangerous Pursuits” was published by Severn House in March. She lives on a spit of green land between the Irish Sea and Strangford Lough, with a hyperactive dog and a slightly cantankerous horse. She isn’t getting old: it’s just that her mounting block gets higher every year.

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Reading is the most fun you can have without breaking some kind of law. It is an on-going grief to me that so many people, adults and children alike, don’t know this. You can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone, between the covers of a book. Tell this to everyone you know.

I write the kind of books I like to read: intelligent, slightly off-beat, with strong characters, well-structured plots and a leavening of humour. Not always WhoDunIts: sometimes they’re WhyDunIts or HowDunIts. Mostly they’re about ordinary decent people finding themselves in extraordinary, sometimes appalling, situations.

As a journalist I spent a lot of time in police stations and courts, and my books are often described as police procedurals. Insofar as I try - without getting bogged-down in the mechanics - to reflect actual criminal investigation techniques, perhaps they are. But they’re really about people: good people, bad people, victims, survivors, weak people, and those who find unexpected strengths within themselves.

Oh yes: and a talking dog.

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Booklist:

The Matrix; The Winter Plain; A Cactus Garden; Striving With Gods, later published as An Uncertain Death; Mosaic; The Mason Codex, later published as Unlawful Entry; Gilgamesh; The Going Down of the ‘Sun’; Shards, later published as Critical Angle; Death And Other Lovers; Fathers And Sins; A Bleeding of Innocents; Sins of the Heart, later published as Charisma; Burning Desires, later published as A Taste for Burning; The Lazarus Hotel; No Birds Sing; The Primrose Convention; Broken Lines; The Hireling’s Tale; The Primrose Switchback; Changelings; Echoes of Lies; True Witness; Reflections; The Depths of Solitude; Breaking Faith; Requiem For a Dealer; The Fifth Cataract; The Tinderbox; Flawed; Closer Still; Liars All; Death In High Places; Deadly Virtues; Perfect Sins; Desperate Measures; Other Countries; Kindred Spirits; Silent Footsteps; Dangerous Pursuits.