Barry Maitland grew up in London and went on to work as an architect and urban designer in the UK. In 1984 he moved to Australia as Professor of Architecture at the University of Newcastle. The Marx Sisters, the first in his London-based Brock and Kolla crime novels, was published in 1994 and 12 more have followed. In addition he has published four crime novels set in Australia. Barry's novels have been published throughout the English-speaking world and in translation in a number of other countries.