Sarah J. Mason

Sarah J. Mason is a British author, born in 1949 in Bishop’s Stortford, England. She was raised by a former naval officer and schoolteacher, Jack and Margaret Mason. As a child, Mason developed a love for Agatha Christie mysteries, which she credits for having some of the best plotting she had ever read. Before becoming a professional novelist, Mason worked in various fields including office management, information officer, librarian, and library assistant. It was the novel "The Moving Toyshop" by Edmund Crispin that inspired her to start writing, showing her that entertaining readers was about alluding to shared experiences rather than directly contributing to the plot.

Mason's debut novel, "Let's Talk of Wills," was published in 1985 by Collins Crime Club. The novel was a whimsical one, making mention of many of Shakespeare's characters without making them fundamental to the overall narrative. Despite receiving stinging criticism from reviewers for not being serious enough, Mason continued to pursue her passion for writing. In 1990, she was approached to write sequels to the late Heron Carvic’s Miss Seeton mysteries, which had been recently reissued in the U.S. During the next ten years, Mason wrote six Trewley and Stone mystery stories under her own name, as well as sixteen Miss Seeton sequels and a Miss Seeton prequel under the pseudonym Hamilton Crane. In 2003, she published her final mystery, "Death on her Doorstep," inspired by her own dog's inquisitive nature. After the Miss Seeton stories were reissued in 2016, three more Hamilton Crane sequels were commissioned, with the final one being published in 2021. Mason has since begun work on a new non-mystery series under the pseudonym Roseanna Hall.