Henrietta Hamilton is the pseudonym for Hester Denne Shepherd who was born in Dundee in 1920 and educated at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, earning an honours degree in Modern Languages. During the Second World War, Hamilton served in the Wrens. Afterwards, she worked in a London bookshop, gaining first-hand experience of antiquarian bookselling – the background of her crime-solving duo, Sally and Johnny Heldar. During her life, Hamilton enjoyed writing and hill-walking. She died in 1995 in Hastings, East Sussex.