Tony Walker

I was born in York, but moved to London in 1971, when I began to deal in antiques and collectibles, first from a stall in Portobello Road, and later with a shop. In 1993, I emigrated to the USA, with my wife Vannessa (the Amazon Queen). We settled in Scottsdale, Arizona, where we started a school, SAS Training, to teach the gentle art of gunfighting to students who wanted to qualify for an Arizona Concealed Weapons permit.

During this time, I was also contributing articles to shooting and collector magazines, and my work was published in the UK, USA, Australia, and South Africa. In addition, I was also a contributor to the book 'Military Collectibles', and wrote three of the sections in the book.

As an accompaniment to my shooting courses, I put together a book, which I titled 'How to Win a Gunfight', which gained some enthusiastic reviews in various shooting magazines. From this, I decided to write a novel.

After some thought, I developed a lead character, John Pilgrim. He was ex-SAS, and lived in London's Soho, where he bought and sold military collectibles. The romance side of his life was filled when he met Sally Brandon, a feisty American journalist, who he married at the end of 'Pilgrim's Traitor'.

This was followed by 'Pilgrim's Banner', which finds Pilgrim and Sally living in Arizona, where they are running a shooting school (Hey! Write about what you know - yes?). A third Pilgrim story is being written right now, with the working title 'Pilgrim's Pistol', which will find Pilgrim in possession of a Walther PPK that once belonged to Hitler's wife (for a day), Eva Braun.

We moved back to the UK in 2011, and settled in Scarborough, where we live in a house with a view of the sea. My hobbies? Hmm .... Old movies, photography, pistol shooting (when we're in the USA), reading histories and biographies, mooching around, and avoiding all forms of hard work.