Ex-nurse and policewoman Joan Lock, is the author of eleven, non-fiction police/crime books. These include two of Scotland Yard's First Detectives and a history of the British women police - a subject on which she is an authority. Joan has also written radio plays and documentaries and more recently turned to crime fiction with short stories and seven novels - one modern and seven Victorian featuring the charismatic Detective Inspector Earnest Best. Two of the latter are partly set in Islington. One of these, Dead Born, is also set against the background of the Princess Alice disaster.