Born in Manchester, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. In 1981 he moved to Italy where he has lived ever since. He is the author of novels, non-fiction and essays, including Europa, Cleaver, A Season with Verona and Teach Us to Sit Still. He has won the Somerset Maugham, Betty Trask and Llewellyn Rhys awards, and been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He lectures on literary translation in Milan, writes for publications such as the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, and his many translations from the Italian include works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Tabucchi and Machiavelli.

"A twisted whodunit...hilarious" Financial Times "Parks writes with a brutal, snapping wit" Sunday Times "A triumph of the darkly-comic-thriller-and-something-more-besides genre" Daily Telegraph "A sort of twisted whodunnit... The readability of the book comes from Parks's wonderful and audacious juggling of farcical situations and the way in which Morris's earnest attempts to build a more cultured and just world lead him further and further into slaughter. Hilarious." Financial Times "Tarantino meets Peter Mayle" Independent on Sunday