JB Dukes (nom de plume) is a professor, with positions in three of the world’s leading universities. Born in London in 1957 and educated in the UK, he has lectured, researched and consulted all over the world. He has two doctorate degrees and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has written and edited 7 academic books; has approximately 200 papers, articles and chapters published in scientific journals, professional journals and edited works; and his scientific papers have won and been nominated for several international prizes. He is married, with a son and a daughter.

Some have asked why this pen name? It’s a strong name. Thriller writers should have short and strong names. JB Dukes rolls off the tongue nicely. More meaningfully, Dukes is an old family name.

My great great grandmother Agnes Dukes (born 1842) had a younger brother who became the Rev Edwin Dukes of Bridgewater Somerset and who had five children including a boy named Paul. Paul was educated at Caterham in Surrey, where my grandfather also schooled, and later at Petrograd Conservatoire, Russia. He graduated from Petrograd as one of MI6’s (SIS’s) most famous recruits and Britain’s only Spy in Russia in the second decade of the 20th century. There he infiltrated many Bolshevik organisations, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Political Police (CHEKA), Comintern (‘The Third International’) and the Politburo itself. After his return to Britain in 1920, he was knighted Sir Paul Dukes by King George V, who called him ‘the Greatest of All Soldiers’. Wikipedia notes that he remains the only person knighted entirely for his contribution as a spy. I have a photo of Sir Paul Dukes (‘man of a hundred faces’) master spy, aged seven at home with his father and three of his siblings. So Dukes, because the grandfather (Joshua Dukes, 1815-1901) of one of Britain’s most famous spies is also my great great great grandfather. As for the initials in the pen name, JB: I leave those who know me to work that one out.