Mark Griffin Books in Order

Mark Griffin began writing as a teenager, winning gold medals in the Hampshire Writing Festival for three years running. It was an early sign of a career that would move through performance, screen work, film history, and crime fiction.

Writing was there from the start, but it wasn't the only thing he wanted to do.

In 1996, Griffin moved to Los Angeles and worked in acting, scriptwriting, and development. He later spent time reading scripts and novels for film work, an experience that meant looking closely at how a story is built, where its tension sits, and what makes a character hold the page.

That background shows up in his fiction. His novels move quickly, but they also spend time on the unsettling details of a case and on the people asked to live with its consequences. The crimes are grim, yet the books are driven by the working relationship between psychologist Holly Wakefield and Metropolitan Police investigator DI Bishop.

His route into crime publishing had a useful turning point. When Darkness Calls was shortlisted in the top five of a national crime-thriller competition that drew more than 3,500 entries. The novel went on to become the first Holly Wakefield book and was longlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger.

Then Holly Wakefield had more cases to solve.

The series continues with When Angels Sleep, When Silence Kills, and When Evil Wakes. Holly is a criminal psychologist who studies serial killers for a living, while carrying painful knowledge of violence from her own past. Readers who like dark police investigations, psychological cat-and-mouse games, and a continuing partnership between two damaged but capable investigators will find plenty to follow here.

Griffin has also written nonfiction about classic Hollywood. A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli looks at the director behind films such as Meet Me in St. Louis, An American in Paris, and Gigi. For All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson, he drew on interviews, private papers, correspondence, and production records to explore Hudson's screen career and carefully guarded private life.

Those projects reflect a long-running interest in old Hollywood and the stories that sit behind public images. They also help explain why Griffin is drawn to secrets, performance, and the gap between what people show the world and what they hide.

Whether he is following a serial killer through London or revisiting a Hollywood life, Griffin's work is interested in what people leave unsaid. That gives his books a clear thread, even as he moves between fact-based biography and fictional crime.