Juan Madrid was born in Malaga in 1947. After graduating from the Universidad de Salamanca, with a degree in Modern History, Juan Madrid worked as an investigative reporter and columnist, a field in which he has earned distinction. Since the 1980s he has built up an extensive literary oeuvre comprising more than thirty titles and today he is one the leading lights of Spanish crime fiction. Creator of the compelling character Toni Romano - who stars in and gives his name to a long series of novels -, Juan Madrid has also written essays and scripts for cinema and television as well as teaching creative writing and script-writing in various centres in Spain and Latin America. He is author of the television series Brigada central (Central Squad) and he directed the films Tánger (Tangier) based on one of his works, La carretera de la muerte (The Road to Death) (2007)