Madeleine Eskedahl was born in Sweden, living in New Zealand for the last thirty years. She's married and has two daughters as well as Archie, the family's West Highland Terrier, and loves to live close to the beach, in a rural community. Having been fortunate to grow up in a small village on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, this particularly resonates with her, and she very much remains an islander at heart. As well as writing crime novels, Madeleine is passionate about conservation and enjoys being a 'penguin ranger'. This job includes regular monitoring of the korora, the little blue penguin and their nesting sites along the coast where she lives.