M.W. Craven

Although he was born in Cumbria, MW Craven grew up in the north east of England before running away to join the army as soon as he was 16. After training as an armourer for two and a half years (that’s an army gunsmith to you and me), he spent the next ten travelling the world having fun.

In 1995 he left the army, and after a brief flirtation with close protection and bodyguarding, decided on a degree in social work with specialisms in criminology and substance misuse. In 1999 he joined Cumbria Probation Service as a probation officer, working his way up to chief officer grade. Sixteen years later he took the plunge and accepted redundancy to concentrate on writing full-time, and now has entirely different motivations for trying to get inside the minds of criminals.

Between leaving the army and securing his first publishing deal, he found time to keep a pet crocodile, breed snakes, get married, and buy a springer spaniel named Bracken. He lives in Carlisle with his wife Joanne, where he tries to leave the house as little as possible.

Books by M.W. Craven

The Botanist

When a killer known as The Botanist starts targeting the sort of people the public love to hate, it’s a job for DS Washington Poe and civilian analyst Tilly Bradshaw. But Poe has to juggle this investigation with the need to save their friend pathologist Estelle Doyle from a murder charge.

Reviewed on 12 November 2022 by Linda Wilson

Dead Ground

DS Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw of the National Crime Agency are called into to investigate a murder at a pop-up brothel and its connections to an important summit being held nearby.

Reviewed on 25 June 2021 by Linda Wilson

The Curator

When body parts start turning up in Cumbria, National Crime Agency investigators DS Washington Poe and civilian analyst Tilly Bradshaw are called in to make sense of an increasingly complex puzzle.

Reviewed on 04 July 2020 by Linda Wilson

Black Summer

When a supposedly dead woman turns up at a police station, an old case comes back to haunt Washington Poe.

Reviewed on 14 March 2020 by Linda Wilson

The Puppet Show

A serial killer is torturing men and then burning them alive, leaving their bodies in stone circles in and around the Lake District. Disgraced copper Washington Poe teams up with the brilliant but socially inept civilian analyst Tilly Bradshaw in the hunt for the killer.

Reviewed on 26 October 2019 by Linda Wilson