John Pearson was born in 1931 and educated at King’s College School Wimbledon and Peterhouse Cambridge and has worked for the Sunday Times and BBC Television.

He is a renowned author and journalist whose books include The Profession of Violence, his famous biography of the Kray twins which won the Edgar Allan Poe Special Award, The Life of Ian Fleming, The Life of James Bond, The Sitwells and Painfully Rich: the Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty. His most recent book is The Cult of Violence, a sequel to his first book on the Krays.