Born in London in 1965, Howard Sounes spent the early part of his career as a newspaper journalist. In 1994, while working for the Sunday Mirror, he broke major stories in the West murder case, then covered the case up to and including Rosemary West's trial. This book, Fred & Rose, was first published in 1995, following Mrs West's conviction. A bestseller, it has remained in print ever since.
Following the success of Fred & Rose, Howard Sounes left newspaper journalism to write books full-time, and is now published in twenty-two languages around the world. He is the author of biographies of Bob Dylan (Down the Highway), Lou Reed (Notes from the Velvet Underground) and the American writer Charles Bukowski (Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life). He has written one other true crime book, Heist: The True Story of the World's Biggest Cash Robbery.