José Carlos Somoza was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1959, but since 1960 he lives in Spain and has Spanish citizenship. He studied medicine, graduating in the specialty of psychiatry in 1994, but decided to leave the profession to dedicate himself to write. He is considered one of the authors renovators of literature of mystery and fantasy in Spanish, with works that breaking the barrier between genres. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, and their participation in festivals and conferences, both in Spain and abroad, is constant. He lives in Madrid with his wife and their two children. Among his novels are Dafne desvanecida (shortlisted prize Nadal 2000) La caverna de las ideas (translated to English as “The Athenian Murders”, awarded the Macallan Gold Dagger Prize 2002 from the Crime Writer’s Association of UK, and was shortlisted for Independent Foreign Fiction Prize) Clara y la penumbra (translated to English as “The Art of Murder”, awarded the prize Fernando Lara 2001 and prize Dashiell Hammett 2002), "La dama número trece" (2003) Zigzag (2006, translated to English as “Zigzag”, published by Harper-Collins in USA, shortlisted for John W. Campbell Memorial Award) and "El cebo" (shortlisted for Dashiell Hammett, 2011), a novel where he uses first time Shakespeare's plays as a leitmotiv for a modern thriller. His last novel so far is "Croatoan" (2015). He also wrote a theatre play, Miguel Will, (1998, awarded the Miguel de Cervantes of Theatre award) that deals with Shakespeare and his company at Globe trying to play "Cardenio", based upon Cervantes' famous novel.