Susanna Gregory

Susanna Gregory is the pen name of Elizabeth Cruwys, a British author and former Cambridge academic whose historical mystery novels are distinguished by their meticulous research, their vivid period detail, and their ingenious plotting. She is one of the most respected and prolific writers of medieval and Restoration-era crime fiction. Born and raised in Bristol, Gregory developed an early interest in medieval history. She worked as a police officer in West Yorkshire for three years before pursuing an academic career. She earned a PhD from the University of Cambridge, served as a Research Fellow at the Scott Polar Research Institute (conducting research on environmental contamination in seals), and taught comparative anatomy and biological anthropology as a Fellow and Tutor at a Cambridge college. Her Matthew Bartholomew series, set in fourteenth-century Cambridge, follows a teacher of medicine at Michaelhouse (a real medieval college) who investigates murders against the backdrop of plague, religious conflict, and academic rivalry. Beginning with A Plague on Both Your Houses (1996), the series now spans over twenty novels and provides a richly detailed, authentic picture of medieval university life. The Thomas Chaloner series is set in Restoration London, following a spy navigating the dangerous political intrigues of Charles II's court. Blood on the Strand and subsequent novels bring the seventeenth century to vivid, treacherous life. Gregory also writes under the name Simon Beaufort, co-authored with her husband Beau Riffenburgh, and was a founding member of the Medieval Murderers, a collective of historical crime fiction authors who produced collaborative novels. The audiobook editions of Gregory's medieval and Restoration mysteries are absorbing listens, with narrators capturing the period detail and atmospheric settings. Her books and audiobooks are essential for anyone who loves historical crime fiction grounded in real scholarship and rich in the texture of the past.