King of Swords

Nick Stone was born in Cambridge, England in 1966. When he was six months old he was sent to live with his grandparents in Haiti, where he remained for the next four years.



Nick returned to England in 1970, where he has lived on and off ever since.

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In his teens Nick was a keen amateur boxer before giving it up to read history at Cambridge University.



After graduating he worked numerous jobs, ranging from the successful (legal clerk, dishwasher) to the not-so successful (miscellaneous white collar office jobs).



In 1996, Nick returned to Haiti for the first time in twelve years, which inspired his first novel, Mr Clarinet.



Upon publication in 2006, Mr Clarinet was a critical and commercial success, winning several international awards including, in the UK, the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, for best thriller of the year, the International Thriller Writers Award for best first novel, and the Macavity Award for best first novel, in the USA, both in 2007. The French translation, Tonton Clarinette, won the public-voted SNCF Prix du Polar in 2009.



Nick’s subsequent books are King of Swords (2007) and Voodoo Eyes (2011), both featuring Max Mingus, the central character from his debut. The books are notable for being out of sequence (King of Swords is a prequel to Mr Clarinet, Voodoo Eyes the sequel) and different in construction one from the other.



Nick’s new novel, The Verdict (2014) is a marked change from his previous work, in that it is a legal thriller, set in contemporary London and told in the first person.