ANDREW RAYMOND

According to the bio on his website: "After an obsession with sport through my teens, the one thing that always stayed with me was a love for books and reading.

I've been a fan of thrillers ever since watching All the President's Men when I was far too young to understand what was going on. Now every day I get to indulge in my passion for fast-paced stories, characters you really care about, and to bring you behind the scenes of the intelligence agencies and the most secretive parts of the political world (the parts they don't want you to know about).

It's often said in my reviews that I write cinematically, which isn't a coincidence, as my influences are as much in cinema as literature: Daniel Craig's Bond films, Glengarry Glen Ross, Spartan. TV has also been a major factor in my writing. From the original BBC miniseries State of Play, David Simon's The Wire, and Aaron Sorkin, writer of The West Wing; and the US version of House of Cards.

After a spell being traditionally published, I decided to go it alone with my Novak and Mitchell series. I love being in control of everything that's put out there, from the direction of book cover design (mine are done by Nick Castle who's designed covers for the likes of Robert Ludlum and Iain Banks, and has worked in-house with HarperCollins, Random House and was Art Director of Orion) to marketing and website design.

I have worked in the book industry since I was 21."