So Who Is This? Ian Backhouse has been writing since he was in his early teens, and at first, it was always as a hobby. Life took many different turns over the coming years, and he had a career first as a professional drummer, then spent ten years in the Metropolitan Police Service, an experience he often draws on in his fiction, and continued to hone his craft during that time. When he left the service in 2005, he began teaching drums and continued his passion for writing. Finally, in 2020 the time felt right to take things the next level: he wrote Beneath The Dark, during lockdown, his fourth novel and submitted the book to agents and publishers, the first time he had ever done so. Two weeks later, publishers Cranthorpe Millner requested his full manuscript after reacting very favourably to the sample chapters. And two weeks on, and he was signing his first publishing contract with them. For his second novel, Ian moved to the independent route, giving him more editorial and design control, as well as marketing and release decisions. This has already turned out to be a good move, with Alice Malign selling even faster than the debut novel back in 2023.