Michael Jecks was born in Surrey, United Kingdom in 1960. He worked as a computer salesman for thirteen years before becoming a full-time author of medieval murder mysteries. His first book, The Last Templar, was published in 1994. Most of his books are either based on Dartmoor legends or on actual events recorded in Coroner's Rolls or the Crown Pleas of the Devon Eyre. He writes the Knights Templar series as well as The Medieval Murderers with Bernard Knight, Ian Morsen, Susannah Gregory, and Phillip Gooden. In 2007, his twenty-first novel, The Death Ship of Dartmouth was short-listed for the Theakston's Old Peculier prize for the best crime novel of the year.