Michael Jecks

Michael Jecks (born 1960, Surrey) is a writer of historical mystery novels. The son of an Actuary, and the fourth of four brothers, he worked in the computer industry before becoming a novelist full time in 1994 – a decision forced on him when he was fired from his last position. He, his wife, daughter and son now live in northern Dartmoor.

Jecks has written a series of novels featuring Sir Baldwin Furnshill, a former Knight Templar, and his friend Simon Puttock, Bailiff of Lydford Castle. More recently he has founded The Medieval Murderers, a speaking and entertainment group of historical writers including Bernard Knight, Ian Morson, Susanna Gregory, Phillip Gooden and CJ Sansom. The group has developed to collaborate on their own highly successful books written as linked novellas, each book with a consistent theme, under the brand of The Medieval Murderers.

A member of the Society of Authors and Royal Literary Society, Jecks was the Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association in 2004–2005. In 2005 he became a member of the Detection Club. From 1998 he organised the CWA Debut Dagger competition for two years, helping unpublished authors to win their first contracts (including Allan Guthrie. He has judged the CWA/Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for three years.

Michael Jecks is a popular speaker at literary festivals and historical meetings, at which he talks with Ian Mortimer, the historian, as well as Medieval Murderers.

An enthusiastic shooter, walker, painter and homebrewer, Jecks will often be seen walking the moors with his Rhodesian Ridgeback and Bernese Mountain Dog, researching his novels in the landscape where they were originally conceived.

Jecks has a distant relative called Alan Jecks, who also has a son called Michael Jecks.