Jessica Mann has been a controversial commentator and critic since first appearing Radio 4's Any Questions in the 1970s. She recently attracted worldwide publicity arising from her comments about explicit violence in crime fiction. She is the author of twenty crime novels and three non-fiction books and a freelance journalist, whose features, weekly columns, numerous travel articles and book reviews have appeared in most national newspapers, weeklies and glossy magazines. She is the crime fiction reviewer of the Literary Review. She has held a series of public appointments as chairwoman or member of committees 'quangos' concerned with the NHS, Utility Regulation, Town and Country Planning, Employment Tribunals, the Arts etc. She is also a broadcaster, having appeared on such programmes as Question Time, Any Questions, Round Britain Quiz, Start The Week, Stop The Week to name but a few. She divides her time between Cornwall, where she lives with her husband, the archaeologist Professor Charles Thomas, and London. She has two sons, two daughters and eleven grandchildren.
