Tom Rob Smith was born in London in February 1979. Educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, he founded InPrint; edited the May Anthologies, an Oxbridge collection of short stories; and his play Losing Voices was produced by the prestigious Marlowe Society, the first student play they had ever funded. After graduating in 2001, he received the Harper Wood creative writing fellowship and worked on several long-running television shows as a writer and a script editor. Shortly thereafter he sold his first screenplay which won him a commission to adapt a short story by British science fiction writer Jeff Noon. It was during this time that he came across the true-life case of Andrei Chikatilo, which is the inspiration for CHILD 44. He lives in London Bridge.