Felicity Young was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1960 and went to boarding school in the United Kingdom while her parents were posted around the world with the British Army. She took up writing after moving to rural Western Australia in 1990. Having a brother-in-law who is a retired police superintendent, it was almost inevitable she would turn to crime writing. Her first novel, A Certain Malice, was published in Britain by Creme de la Crime in 2005.