After a successful career as a television writer and producer, working on such series as A Touch of Frost, Midsomer Murders and Between the Lines, Michael Russell decided to write what he had always wanted to: books.

The City in Year Zero is the tenth and last of his Stefan Gillespie stories of historical crime fiction, taking a sideways look at the Second World War through Irish eyes, and exploring some unexpected corners of the conflict, such as Danzig, New York, the Vatican City and in this final novel, Berlin.

Michael lives with his family in West Wicklow, in Ireland, not a million miles from Stefan Gillespie's home.