Simon Michael has been a published author in the UK and the USA since the late 1980s (St Martin’s Press, WH Allen, Grafton Press and others). He also has experience writing for the screen. Simon is today probably most recognisable as the author of the best-selling London 1960s Charles Holborne thriller series published by Sapere Books. The series features his antihero barrister, an East End villain made good, battling the prejudices of that era, the Kray twins and the corrupt Metropolitan Police. Frequently called ‘the British John Grisham’, Simon draws from personal experience. The series is based upon his own family history and his forty-year career as a barrister (trial attorney). Simon worked in the Old Bailey and other criminal courts defending and prosecuting a wide selection of murderers, armed robbers, con artists and other assorted villainy. Enough bent coppers, cunning criminals and mad judges, he says, for a lifetime of plots. The series, which runs currently to eight books, is described by Book Magnet as ‘absolutely unputdownable’, by Publishers Weekly as providing ‘chilling suspense and climactic surprises’ and by the New Law Journal as ‘superlative courtroom drama’.
Simon’s novel, The Semi-Detached Women, will be published later this year by Bloodhound.
Simon also works in other genres and has written romantic fiction, including the Cosmopolitan Short Story Prize shortlisted Split, and speculative fiction. www.simonmichael.uk.
