Stuart Pawson lives in Fairburn, Yorkshire, with his wife, Doreen, and can often be found tramping across the moors that form a backdrop to his stories.

After a career as a mining electrical engineer he worked part-time for the probation service for five years, mediating between offenders and their victims. This gave him a good insight into the criminal justice system, and it was during this period that he started to write his first book, The Picasso Scam. Stuart believes he must have some cowboy genes somewhere in his genome because he has always had a strong affinity for the American West. His first visit to the USA was to work for a month at a Wyoming coalmine, and he has since holidayed over there many times. Although tone-deaf (some would say stone-deaf) he has always thought it would be good fun to be a songwriter. The thought of composing a three-minute song as opposed to a 300-page book has a certain attraction. He managed to combine the two themes - song writing and the West - in the opening chapters of Laughing Boy, and he enjoyed writing that one immensely.