Karen Maitland, who also writes as KJ Maitland, has a doctorate in psycholinguists and lives in the beautiful county of Devon, close to Dartmoor where Agatha Christie had her writing retreat and Sir Arthur Colon Doyle wrote 'The Hound of the Baskervilles', one of Karen’s favourite childhood books.

Writing as KJ Maitland, 'A Plague of Serpents,' the final historical thriller in her Jacobean quartet, is now out in pb. Set in the aftermath of the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605, Daniel Pursglove is ordered to infiltrate the 'Serpents', a desperate band of Catholics plotting the death of the King, or face his own execution. The 1st book in the series -'The Drowned City', the 2nd - 'Traitor in the Ice', and the 3rd - 'Rivers of Treason', are all published by Headline.

Her first stand alone medieval thriller was 'Company of Liars', was set at the time of the Black Death in 1348. This was followed by The Owl Killers', 'The Gallows Curse', 'Falcons of Fire and Ice', 'The Vanishing Witch', 'The Raven's Head,' 'The Plague Charmer' and 'A Gathering of Ghosts', Her medieval novels are written under the name of Karen Maitland and are published by Penguin and Headline.

Karen is also one of six historical crime writers known as the Medieval Murderers – Philip Gooden, Susannah Gregory, Michael Jecks, Bernard Knight and Ian Morson – who together write joint murder-mystery novel, including 'The Sacred Stone', 'Hill of Bones' and 'The First Murder', 'The False Virgin' and 'The Deadliest Sin' published by Simon & Schuster.