Dr. Gay Marris is a retired research scientist. Her career focused on insect ecology, parasites and honey bee health. Her first novel, The Curtain Twitcher's Book of Murder, set in the suburbs of the deceptively dangerous suburbs of 1960s London, where she grew up and was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey First Novel Prize. Her second novel, The Beasts of the Black Loch, is the first in the Natural History of Murder series. Gay now lives in York with her husband, a cat and a tortoise.