Living close to the English-Scottish border, somewhere which has more medieval castles and Roman ruins than anywhere else in Europe, it was perhaps inevitable that I grew up with a fascination for history but I wasn't able to turn my passion into a career for several years. During my early working life, I spent far too long failing to be a lawyer until a chance meeting (and too many beers) with a local magazine editor led to me spending a night in one of the Border Country's crumbling fortresses. My mission was to investigate claims that this castle was the most haunted medieval building in England but, though the promised ghosts failed to appear, my article did and I've written for magazine and newspapers ever since. The Devil's Band is my first novel and, by a strange coincidence, I now find myself living with my wife and four children near another castle, one that was once owned by the real Thomas Devilstone.