Cath Staincliffe

Cath Staincliffe is a best-selling novelist, radio playwright and the creator of ITV's hit series, BLUE MURDER. Her debut LOOKING FOR TROUBLE launched private eye Sal, a single parent juggling work and home, onto Manchester’s mean streets. It was short listed for the CWA’s New Blood Dagger and serialised on BBC Radio 4. Cath has published a further seven Sal Kilkenny mysteries.

THE FELLS, the first of Cath’s new Donovan and Young series set in the Yorkshire Dales, was shortlisted for The People’s Book Prize. FIRE ON THE FELLS (Detectives Donovan and Young Book 2) is out now.

THE LOST GIRLS OF ST ANN’S is a move away from crime. A family saga, rooted in Cath’s experience as an adoptee growing up in the 1960s, it captures the loss that remains for everyone at the heart of adoption. Cath’s own story, of being re-united with her Irish birth family and seven brothers and sisters, featured in the television documentary Finding Cath from RTE.

Her radio work for the BBC includes the three-part thriller, UNDERCOVER, where a police officer masquerades as a nanny to find out the truth about a missing woman, and LEGACY, featuring brother and sister heir hunters. Cath was a writer on Danny Brocklehurst’s detective drama STONE.

Cath’s stand-alone novels tell stories of ordinary families caught up in extraordinary events, giving a voice to victims, the bereaved, survivors and witnesses.

Cath has been short listed six times for the prestigious CWA Daggers and was a winner of the Short Story Dagger. LETTERS TO MY DAUGHTER’S KILLER was selected for Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club and featured on ITV3’s Crime Thriller Club. Cath was a joint winner of the WGGB Best Radio Drama Award 2019 for STONE S7. RUNNING OUT OF ROAD was short-listed for the eDunnit best novel Award at CrimeFest 2022.

Cath is a founder member of Murder Squad, a virtual collective of northern crime writers. An avid reader, she likes hill-walking, messing about in the garden and dancing (with far more enthusiasm than grace).