Multi-award winning, Sunday Times bestselling author M.W. Craven is best known for his wildly successful Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw crime fiction series, which has now been translated into thirty languages. His books have won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, the Old Peculier Crime Novel of the year and the Capital Crime Fingerprint Award for Best Crime Novel.
Craven’s varied life experiences make him uniquely suited to the crime, thriller and spy genres. He joined the army at sixteen, leaving twelve years later to complete a degree in social work, then taking up the role of a probation officer in Cumbria. Seventeen years later, having reached the rank of assistant chief officer, he made the transition to full-time author.
His US-based Ben Koenig series will soon be a major TV series, and his upcoming new 007 series for younger readers, starting with James Bond and the Secret Agent Academy, is set to be released in June 2026.
John Gardner, described as ‘the consummate thriller writer‘ by The Guardian, produced more than 50 books during his lifetime. His first novel, published in the year of Fleming’s death, was The Liquidator. Written as a spoof of the James Bond books, it centred on the cowardly spy Boysie Oakes and was the start of a series that would also be adapted into films.
In the mid-1970s Gardner wrote The Moriarty Journals, two well-received Sherlock Holmes continuation stories. A few years later he was approached by Harry Keating, crime novelist and president of the Detection Club, on behalf of The Fleming Estate, and was given the task of reinventing the Bond story for the 1980s.
Licence Renewed (1976) was the first in a franchise that lasted 20 years, with a total of 16 books. Gardner’s personal favourite of the series was The Man from Barbarossa.
Alongside his Bond books, Gardner wrote a series of gritty espionage thrilers starring ‘Big’ Herbie Kruger, six stand-alone thrillers and more. John Gardner died in 2007 at the age of 80.
Frank Cottrell-Boyce, UK Children’s Laureate 2024-2026, is a multi award-winning children’s author, screenwriter, creative and podcaster. He has authored three widely loved Chitty Chitty Bang Bang adventures inspired by Ian Fleming’s original story.
Millions, his debut children’s novel, was awarded the prestigious CILIP Carnegie Medal and his books have been shortlisted for a multitude of prizes, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Whitbread Children’s Fiction Award, The Roald Dahl Funny Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award. Other books include Cosmic, Framed, The Astounding Broccoli Boy, Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth and The Wonder Brothers. Frank has enjoyed a long-standing collaboration with award-winning illustrator Steven Lenton.
As well as authoring books, Frank has written for the hit TV series Dr Who and his script for Michael Morpurgo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom won a British Animation Award. In 2012 he worked with director Danny Boyle to devise the Opening Ceremony for the London Olympics and in 2023 he launched a successful podcast with Nadia Shireen, The Island of Brilliant!, celebrating writing and illustration for children of all ages.
Fergus Fleming, nephew of Ian Fleming, is a noted author in the historical and biographical genres.
Educated at Oxford University, Fleming trained as an accountant, barrister and worked as a furniture maker before becoming an editor at Time-Life Books for six years. His first novel Barrow’s Boys was published in 1998.
Other notable non-fiction works include Killing Dragons: The Quest For The Alps, Ninety Degrees North: The Quest For The North Pole and The Cuban Missile Crisis. Fergus is also the author of Amaryllis, a portrait of his aunt, and of several children’s books.
Fergus is co-publisher of Ian Fleming’s imprint, Queen Anne Press. In 2015 he edited The Man With The Golden Typewriter, an anthology of Ian Fleming’s James Bond letters.
Steve Cole, born in 1971, is a prolific British children’s author.
Formerly a children’s book editor, Steve has written over 200 titles across a wide range of genres, from science fiction and fantasy to adventure and comedy. His hugely successful, action-packed Astrosaurs series has sold two million copies in the UK to date. Steve is a contributor to the Doctor Who universe and in 2014, took the Young Bond baton from Charlie Higson, going on to write Shoot To Kill and three more adventures for the young James Bond.
Known for his lively school visits, dedication to early years’ literacy and infectious enthusiasm for storytelling, Steve has inspired thousands of young readers. He lives in Buckinghamshire, England.
Nicholas Shakespeare is a prize-winning novelist and biographer, described by the Wall Street Journal as ‘one of the best English novelists of our time’. One of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 1993, his books have been translated into 22 languages. They include The Vision of Elena Silves, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and The Dancer Upstairs, which was made into a film by John Malkovich and named Best Novel of 1995 by the American Libraries Association. His nonfiction includes the critically acclaimed authorised biography of Bruce Chatwin, In Tasmania, and Priscilla: the hidden life of an Englishwoman in Occupied France. He has been longlisted for the Booker Prize twice, was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
In 2023, Shakespeare released Ian Fleming: The Complete Man – the first authorised biography of the author since 1966 – and received the Crime Writer’s Association Gold Dagger for that year’s best non-fiction.
John Pearson, author, biographer and journalist, achieved world renown for his biographies of Ian Fleming, the Sitwells and the Kray Brothers, as well as many others.
After unstable employment as a journalist throughout his early career, Pearson was offered a job by Ian Fleming and became his assistant at The Sunday Times, editing the Atticus column. Having worked alongside Fleming for a number of years, he began to write his own works. He started with award-winning novel Gone to Timbuctoo (1962), inspired by a research trip to West Africa from which he returned unrecognisable to his children with a long black beard and a white fez. It was in 1966, two years after Fleming’s death, when Pearson’s The Life of Ian Fleming was published. It was extremely popular and was soon serialised in Life magazine. He went on to write James Bond: The Authorised Biography in 1973.
A brief stint in Italy after this success was soon followed by a return to the UK, where he continued to write biographies. The death of both Kray twins led to the publication of two groundbreaking books based on their lives, which were adapted into the film Legend in 2015. John Pearson died in 2021 at the age of 91.
Samantha Weinberg is a British novelist, journalist, and podcaster. She is the author of several acclaimed non-fiction works, including A Fish Caught in Time, and Pointing from the Grave, which won the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction for its compelling account of the groundbreaking use of DNA profiling in a 1985 murder case involving a biotechnologist.
In 2005, writing under the pseudonym Kate Westbrook, Weinberg became the first woman to author an official James Bond novel. The Moneypenny Diaries, a trilogy of novels and two short stories, reimagined the world of 007 through the eyes of Miss Moneypenny, M’s loyal secretary.
More recently, she has contributed to Tortoise Media and written and narrated Trace of Doubt, an eight-part true crime podcast series for Audible.
Peter Bently grew up in a military family and lived in Germany, Singapore and Hong Kong as well as in various parts of England, including Devon, Staffordshire and Hampshire. He went to ten different schools.
A lifelong lover of words, Peter began his career in journalism before moving into book publishing, where he spent many years editing and sometimes writing titles for adults. Alongside this he always enjoyed writing humorous stories and verses, including a rhyming best man’s speech for his brother’s wedding that inspired his wife to encourage him to take writing more seriously.
After the birth of their first child, Peter rediscovered the joy of children’s books and began to focus on writing for young readers. In 2005 his picture book A Lark in the Ark was accepted for publication by Egmont (now Farshore).
Since then, he has gone on to write more than seventy books including The Great Dog Bottom Swap (illustrated by Mei Matsuoka), Meet the Parents (with Sara Ogilvie), The Shark in the Dark (with Ben Cort) and, of course, the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Picture Book (illustrated by Steve Antony). His books have won several awards including the 2011 Roald Dahl Funny Prize for Cats Ahoy! (illustrated by Jim Field) and the 2022 Children’s Book Award (UK) for Octopus Shocktopus, (illustrated by Steven Lenton).
Mixology maestro Edmund Weil is an award-winning bar owner and part of the team behind essential cocktail book, Shaken: Drinking with James Bond and Ian Fleming. Edmund’s grandfather was Ian Fleming’s cousin, which gives him a unique insight into the author and his most famous hero.
A teacher before moving into the world of hospitality, Edmund and his wife Rosie have helped kickstart the speakeasy bar movement. Their London venues – Nightjar, Oriole and Swift – place regularly on the list of The World’s 50 Best Bars.
For the book, Edmund delved into the history of James Bond and Ian Fleming, working with Mia Johansson and Bobby Hiddleston to create drinks recipes with knowledge and passion for both the literary connections and the art of mixology.
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