Gareth Ward is not your average author. He has been a police officer, royal marine commando, magician, hypnotist and a zombie. Gareth is an author and the owner of two independent bookshops. Gareth’s first novel, The Traitor and the Thief, won the Storylines Tessa Duder award in 2016 and was published through Walker Books Australia. The sequel, The Clockill and the Thief, was published in 2019. Gareth won the 2018 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Youth Novel, received a 2018 Storylines Notable Book Award, has been a finalist in two categories at The New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and made New Zealand Listener’s Top 50 Book list in 2017.