Hayder, Mo

The British thriller writer Mo Hayder, pen name for Clare Dunkel, grew up in Essex. She revolted against her academic family by leaving school at the age of fifteen. She, herself, for a long time considered it to be a considerably greater achievement to be arrested by the police than to gain a place at a university. Just before her sixteenth birthday, she left for London, and for many years lived in the shadow side of society, where she managed to support herself by working at rather dodgy pubs. Finally, however, she made her way home and got her schooling sorted out.