Winner of CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2008 and Galaxy British Book Awards: Waterstone's New Writer of the Year 2009. Shortlisted for Desmond Elliott Prize 2008 and CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2008 and Costa First Novel Award 2008 and The South Bank Show Awards: Literature 2009 and Galaxy British Book Awards: Books Direct Crime Thriller of the Year 2009 and Independent Booksellers' Book of the Year Award: Adults' Book of the Year 2009 and Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2010.

Tom Rob Smith was born in l979 to a Swedish mother and an English father and was brought up in London where he still lives. He graduated from Cambridge in 2001 and spent a year in Italy on a creative writing scholarship. Tom has worked as a screenwriter for the past five years, including a six-month stint in Phnom Penh storylining Cambodia's first ever soap. CHILD 44 is his first novel.