Alex Gray was born and educated in Glasgow. She has worked as a folk singer, a visiting officer for the Department of Social Security and an English teacher. She has been awarded the Scottish Association of Writers' Constable and Pitlochry trophies for her crime writing. Married with a son and daughter, she now writes full time.Former head of the anthropology department at the University of Sydney, A. P. Elkin (1891-1979) authored eight books and numerous articles in Australia, the United States, France, and England, including The Australian Aborigines.