TorquilMacLeod was an advertising copywriter for 36 years. Born in Edinburgh, he nowlives in Lancashire, with his wife, Susan. He came up with the idea for hisMalmo detective, Inspector Anita Sundstrom, afterthe elder of his two sons moved to southern Sweden in 2000, and the author befriendedtwo police detectives (both of whom worked out ofthe Ystad police station, the townin which author Henning Mankell's set his Kurt Wallander crime series.