Susan Grossey

I have been in love with words ever since I realised, at age three, that those squiggles on the page actually meant something. For twenty-five years I ran my own anti-money laundering consultancy, and my obsession with understanding the mechanics and motivations of financial crime has only grown.

I spent years haunting the streets of Regency London, in the company of magistrates’ constable Sam Plank. He is the narrator of my series of seven historical financial crime novels set in consecutive years in the 1820s – just before Victoria came to the throne, and in the policing period between the Bow Street Runners and the Met Police. The fourth Sam Plank novel – “Portraits of Pretence” – was given the “Book of the Year” award in 2017 by influential book review website Discovering Diamonds. And the fifth – “Faith, Hope and Trickery” – was shortlisted for the Selfies Award 2019.

I am now working on a series of five books set in my hometown of Cambridge (England) in the 1820s, this time narrated by a university constable called Gregory Hardiman. The first in the series – “Ostler” – was shortlisted for the Selfies Book Award in 2024, and the second – “Sizar” – for the same award in 2025. The third in the series – “Whipster” – was published in December 2025.