Catherine Sampson studied Chinese at Leeds University and then as a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University. She first went to China as a student at Fudan University in Shanghai in 1981, then returned to teach English in Xiamen in 1986. From 1987 to 88 she worked at the BBC Monitoring Service, where she helped to collate translations of Chinese broadcasts and articles from Chinese newspapers. From 1988 to 1993 she returned to Beijing as the correspondent for The Times newspaper, in particular covering the massacre of 1989 and the subsequent political crackdown.  After periods living and freelancing in Hong Kong and Britain, she returned to Beijing with her family in 2001. Her crime novels, Falling Off Air, Out of Mind, and The Pool of Unease are all published in paperback by Macmillan. The Slaughter Pavilion will be published in hardback by Macmillan in September.