Born above a shoe shop in the mid-1960s, Neil spent most of his childhood in Wakefield in West Yorkshire as his father pursued a career in the shoe trade. This took Neil to Bridlington in his teens, where he failed all his exams and discovered that doing nothing soon turns into long-term unemployment. Re-inventing himself, Neil returned to education in his 20s, qualified as a solicitor when he was 30, and now spends his days in the courtroom and his evenings writing crime fiction.