Tony Park was born in 1964 and grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. He has worked as a journalist, public relations consultant and a press secretary. He also served 34 years in the Australian Army Reserve, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2002. He is the author of 17 other thriller novels, all set in Africa. Tony and his wife, Nicola, divide their time equally between a home in Australia and a house on the edge of the Kruger National Park in South Africa. Shane Bryant was born in Sydney and grew up in Dapto on the New South Wales south coast. After joining the Australian Army at the age of seventeen, he eventually fulfilled his ambition to qualify as an explosive detection dog handler. He later worked as a police dog handler, a private investigator and a not-very-successful real estate salesman. In 2006, he returned to his first love, working with dogs, and took a job in Afghanistan as a civilian dog handler contracted to provide support to the US Army and other coalition military forces. He served 10 years in Afghanistan and Iraq as a military contractor in frontline and management positions.