I was born in Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders in the summer of 1956. Educated at Parkside Primary School and Jedburgh Grammar School, I left three weeks before my 16th birthday with six O levels and no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
Luckily, a friend worked in the local employment office and got me a place on a Youth Opportunities Scheme. It turned out to be restoring a Roman marching camp at Pennymuir in the Cheviot Hills and I had a wonderful summer turning turf and dreaming of Romans.
Obviously, I couldn’t do that for the rest of my life. I was good at English and had a voracious reading habit, and my dad pointed me towards an advert for a junior reporter with the local paper – and changed my life. For the next 30-odd years I worked in local and national newspapers and ended up as assistant editor of The Scotsman in Edinburgh, a job I left in July 2009 to write full time.
Books have always been part of me. My father first took me to the library when I was about five. I probably made my first attempt at writing one a couple of years later and I’ve been trying, on and off, ever since.
I now live in Bridge of Allan, a lovely village on the doorstep of the Trossachs and I’m married to Alison and we have three children who never fail to make me terribly proud of them.
I enjoy watching rugby, and find life at its most relaxing by the river with a fly fishing rod in my hand, although I seldom disturb many fish
Caligula is being published in ten languages including Russian, Spanish, Polish and Portuguese