Bernard Knight

Professor Bernard Knight, CBE, became a Home Office pathologist in 1965 and was appointed Professor of Forensic Pathology, University of Wales College of Medicine, in 1980. He has been writing since before 1963, when his first crime novel was published. Since then, he has written about thirty books, including contemporary crime fiction, historical novels about Wales, biography, non-fiction popular works on forensic medicine, twelve medico-legal textbooks and the current highly-acclaimed Crowner John Mysteries series of 12th century historical mysteries for Simon & Schuster UK Ltd.

In addition, he has written many scripts for radio and television dramas and documentaries, including the well-known forensic series The Expert starring Marius Goring, back in the 1970s. He has contributed to many other textbooks and has edited several medical journals - he was Managing Editor of Elsevier's Forensic Science International, the leading international publication in the field.

Currently, he is a founder member of The Medieval Murderers, a select group of historical crime-writers within the Crime Writers' Association, who give presentations at literary festivals, libraries and bookshops, to promote their work amongst the public. He is also one of the non-fiction judges for the annual 'Dagger' Awards of the Crime Writers' Association and a regular reviewer of crime books for the Internet site Tangled Web.

He was born and lives in Cardiff and as well as being a doctor, he qualified as a barrister and was awarded the CBE in 1993 for services to forensic medicine. In the 1950s, he served as a Regular Army medical officer in Malaya during the terrorist campaign, in a military hospital which he compares with 'MASH'.