Ashton, Hugh: - After graduating from the University of Cambridge in 1977, Hugh moved between various jobs before ending up in the field of IT. His interests took him to Japan in 1988 on a two-year contract, to work as a technical writer. Twenty-eight years later, he returned to the UK with his wife Yoshiko, to live in the Midlands cathedral city of Lichfield, the setting for his Sherlock Holmes mysteries, The Lichfield Murder, close to Rugeley, the setting for The Bloody Steps. As well as this title, he published a dozen volumes of Sherlock Holmes adventures with Inknbeans Press of California (now sadly defunct, with the titles now published by j-views Publishing), many based on the untold adventures referenced in the canon, and all in the style of the originals, which has led some critics to describe him as the reincarnation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and one of the most authentic of the current crop of pastiche writers. Like ACD, he has also written contemporary thrillers, vintage science fiction, and historical adventures, as well as a critically acclaimed volume of short stories about the older generation in Japan, Tales of Old Japanese. However, he does not play cricket, and though he once grew a moustache, it is by now no more than a fading memory.