David Wishart was born in Arbroath, Scotland. He studied Classics at Edinburgh University and taught Latin and Greek in school for four years before escaping and retraining as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language. Most of his novels share the same protagonist, Marcus Corvinus. Spurning the conventional career path of a military posting via a civil service post to an elected post and the Senate, Wishart's hero develops a taste for investigating crimes of a particularly sensitive nature, thereby allowing the author to introduce numerous historical figures and to continue to mine a rich seam of Imperial Roman intrigue.
