Robert Barnard, currently lives with his wife in Yorkshire. He was born in Essex on 23 November, 1936. Educated at the Royal Grammar School in Colchester and at Balliol College, Oxford, taking his Ph.D. from the University of Bergen, Norway, in 1972, he spent many years as a distinguished academic while establishing himself as one of today's most distinguished crime writers. His fascination with the pure detective story is evident in his many novels.
A trip to a conference was not something Superintendent Perry Trethowan would attend by choice, but the annual conference of the World Association of Romantic Novelists. Normally a large dose of chloroform and several feet of stout rope would be needed to get him through the doors. But there he is and the last thing he expected to be there with him was a dead body. A body clothed in frothy pink, clasping a bough of cherry blossom. He is never going to live it down back at the station.