Alan Judd began writing while in the Foreign Office. His novel, The Devil's Own Work, won the Guardian fiction prize and his biography of Ford Madox Ford the Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann award. He has also published a biography of Mansfield Cumming, founder of the modern Secret Service, using Cumming's previously unknown diaries. His last novel was Legacy, a thriller set in 1970s London. Judd is the motoring correspondent of the Spectator and writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph.