William Deverell was a journalist for seven years while working his way through law school. As a lawyer, he was counsel in more than a thousand criminal cases, including 30 murder trials, either as defender or prosecutor. His first novel, Needles, won the $50,000 Seal Prize in l979. His subsequent 15 books include Trial of Passion, which launched the Arthur Beauchamp Crime Series and won the 1997 Arthur Ellis Prize for best Canadian crime novel and the Dashiell Hammett Award for literary excellence in crime writing in North America. The creator of CBC-TV’s long-running drama series Street Legal, Deverell lives on Pender Island, British Columbia, and in Costa Rica.