John Pearson was born in Epsom in 1930. He graduated from Peterhouse Cambridge with a double first in History, then worked on the Economist Intelligence Unit and as a BBC trainee producer before being offered a job by Ian Fleming as his assistant on the ‘Atticus’ column for the Sunday Times. Pearson is the author of – among others – the only authorised biography of Ian Fleming, as well as bestsellers The Profession of Violence and All the Money in the World both of which were adapted into films.