Mike Phillips was born in Guyana, and grew up in London. He worked for the BBC as a journalist and broadcaster on television programs before becoming a lecturer in media studies at the University of Westminster. He has written many critically-acclaimed crime novels, including Blood Rights, which is being adapted for BBC television, and The Late Candidate, winner of the Crime Writers' Association Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction. He is also the author of an essay collection, London Crossings: A Biography of Black Britain. He lives in London.