Chris Crowther was born in Yorkshire but grew up on the Suffolk coast. At the age of thirteen he joined the Air Training Corps where he learned to fly. In the following 42 years, he flew 22000 hours piloting a variety of aircraft, many of them over the West African coast where he ended his career as Chief Pilot of a helicopter operation. It was during hours spent sitting on helidecks out in the South Atlantic that he penned articles and short stories, many of which appeared in magazines and periodicals around the world. Now, in semi-retirement, he divides his time between writing, sailing and skippering passenger boats on the river where he lives with his wife, Sue. BLADESTRIKE is his first full-length novel. Always keen to hear reader’s views, he can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .