Beckett, Simon

English author whose crime novels have become more popular in other countries – including Scandinavia and Germany – than at home. Simon Beckett was born in a working-class family in Sheffield, and graduated with a B.A. in English from Sheffield Polytechnic (now Hallam University) and subsequently gained an M.A. at Newcastle University. He then worked for several years as a janitor and for a while as an English teacher in Spain. After returning to England, he was a drummer in various music bands – none of them famous – and also started to work with freelance journalism, writing for a number of newspapers, including The Times, Daily Telegraph and Observer.