David McDonald is a retired prison officer from Portlaoise. He has worked in some of the largest prisons in Ireland including Mountjoy and Portlaoise. He was Assistant Chief Officer in the Midlands prison. Unlocked is his first book.

Mick Clifford is Special Correspondent for the Irish Examiner. He has worked in print and broadcast journalism for over twenty years. He is the author of three non-fiction books, including Bertie Ahern and the Drumcondra Mafia (with Shane Coleman) and A Force for Justice: The Maurice McCabe Story, and two crime novels. In 2014, TV3's Tonight with Vincent Browne selected him as Journalist of the Year for his coverage of the garda whistle-blower story. He was named the newspaper industry's Journalist of the Year in 2016. He lives in Dublin.