A. J. Hartley

British born writer A.J. Hartley got his first taste for archaeology touring sites in Greece and Rome as a child with his family. As an English major at Manchester University he took extra classes in Egyptology and got a job working on a Bronze Age site just outside Jerusalem… Since then, life has taken him to many places around the world—including a couple of years in Japan—and though he always leaned more towards the literary than to the strictly historical, his fascination with the past has continued unabated. He is the USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of the mystery/thrillers The Mask of Atreus and On the Fifth Day, which have been printed in 20 languages worldwide. His third thriller, What Time Devours, which centers on a lost Shakespeare play, will be released by Penguin/Berkley in January of 2009, at the same time as his first fantasy adventure, Act of Will, is released by Tor.

A.J. has an M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Boston University and is currently the Distinguished Professor of Shakespeare in the Department of Theatre at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is the director of the Shakespeare in Action Centre, the editor of the performance journal Shakespeare Bulletin published by Johns Hopkins UP, and the author of The Shakespearean Dramaturg as well as numerous articles in the field. He is currently writing a performance history of Julius Caesar for Manchester UP.

As well as being a novelist and academic, he is a screenwriter, theatre director and dramaturg. He makes beer and furniture and has more hobbies than is good for anyone. He is married with a son, and lives in Charlotte.