Born in England, Michael Dibdin attended schools in Scotland and Ireland, and after earning a B.A. at the University of Sussex went on to complete an M.A. in English Literature at the University of Alberta. He then spent four years in Italy teaching at the University of Perugia. In 1988, Dibdin introduced the Italian cop Aurelio Zen in Ratking, which won the Gold Dagger award in the same year, and in 1994, he won France's Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere for the third novel in the Zen series, Cabal. Dibdin reviews regularly for the Independent on Sunday and lives in Seattle with his third wife, Kathrine Beck, also a mystery writer. The Aurelio Zen series is translated into sixteen languages (including Italian).He died in 2007.