Early life

Leather was born in Manchester. He grew up in Sale and Chorlton-cum-Hardy, and attended Manchester Grammar School.^[7] He attended Bath University, where he obtained a BSc in Biochemistry in 1980.^[2]

Early career

Leather was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue.^[2] He began his writing career as a journalist, working for newspapers such the Glasgow Herald, Daily Mirror, The Times, Daily Mail, and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong.^[8]

Writing career

Leather began writing when he was in college; however, he "never managed to get beyond a few pages,"^[9] and did not begin writing full-time until he had worked as a journalist for more than ten years.^[8]

His first novel, Pay Off, was written while he was still employed at The Daily Mirror.^[8] It was published from the "slush pile" at HarperCollins. The novel is a thriller about a merchant banker who takes revenge on two gangsters who killed his father. The book is set in Scotland, where Leather worked for five years on The Glasgow Herald as a business writer.

His second novel, The Fireman, was written while he was working as the business editor of the South China Morning Post.^[9][10] In The Fireman, a British tabloid journalist travels to Hong Kong to discover why his sister committed suicide. Both novels, and his third, Hungry Ghost, were published by HarperCollins.

Leather wrote his fourth novel, The Chinaman, while working as night news editor on the business desk of The Times in London.^[8][9] At the time, the Provisional Irish Republican Army's bombing campaign was at its height, and in The Chinaman, a Sino-Vietnamese man loses his family in an attack loosely based on the bombing of the Harrods department store in London. Having been turned away by the authorities, the man, a highly decorated Special Forces fighter in the Vietnam War, travels to Ireland and hunts down the people responsible.^[8][11][12] The book was used as the basis for the 2017 thriller The Foreigner.^[13]

Published works

Leather's novels frequently include themes of crime, imprisonment, military service, and terrorism. Settings are typically London and the Far East. Leather writes different series in slightly different genres. The main character of one series, Dan 'Spider' Shepherd, is a former Special Air Service soldier who becomes an undercover policeman. Another series, Jack Nightingale, is about a former police negotiator who becomes a private investigator;^[14] this supernatural detective series is also published by Hodder & Stoughton and includes the books Nightfall, Midnight, Nightmare, Nightshade^[15] and Lastnight.

Leather has written screenplays for London's Burning, The Knock, and the BBC's Murder in Mind series.^[3][16][17] Two of his novels, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were screened for made for TV movies and filmed for Sky Television. The Stretch starred Leslie Grantham and Anita Dobson, two popular soap opera stars from the U.K.^[18]

Novels

Short stories

Screenplays