Barbara Nadel

Background

Born in the East End of London, Barbara Nadel trained as an actress before becoming a writer. Now writing full-time, she has previously worked as a public relations officer for the National Schizophrenia Fellowship's Good Companion Service and as a mental health advocate for the mentally disordered in a psychiatric hospital. She has also worked with sexually abused teenagers and taught psychology in schools and colleges, and was the patron of The Acorn Group in Shrewsbury, a charity (now apparently closed following a cut in funding) caring for those in emotional and mental distress.

She has been a regular visitor to Turkey for more than 25 years.

Until late 2014, Nadel lived in "the wilds of the north of England" with her husband and six axolotls, her "very demanding Persian cat" having died on 23 December 2011, but then moved from the Pennines to "a small village in Essex just outside London". Her son is a published academic.

Writing

Nadel has written 19 books in her series about Çetin İkmen, a chain-smoking and hard-drinking detective on the Istanbul police force, and his colleagues Mehmet Süleyman, Balthazar Cohen, and Armenian pathologist Arto Sarkissian. These have been translated into a number of languages, including Turkish, and have been released as audiobooks in English and German.

Her second crime series, set in West Ham in the East End of London, during The Blitz, features undertaker Francis Hancock.

In January 2011, Quercus announced the signing of Ms Nadel to write a new crime series set in the modern-day East End, to be published starting Summer 2012 under the name B J Nadel, although the published book credited Barbara Nadel. Publication moved to Allison & Busby from the fifth book in the series.

Other published works include short stories in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, plus British magazines (My Weekly and Woman's Own), and travel pieces for British newspapers (The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Independent), and the US food magazine Saveur.

Awards

2005 winner of the CWA Silver Dagger (for Deadly Web)

2006 winner of Jury magazine's Flintyxan ("Flint Axe") award for Best Historical Crime Novel (for Dödlig rättvisa, Marianne Alstermark's Swedish translation of Last Rights)

2008 winner of the London Borough of Redbridge "Big Red Read" Book of the Year for Ashes to Ashes

2010 winner of the London Borough of Redbridge "Big Red Read" Crime Fiction of the Year for Sure and Certain Death

2013 Derringer Finalist for short story "Nain Rouge", published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine