Charles Cumming was born in Ayr, Scotland in 1971. He was educated at Eton and graduated from the University of Edinburgh with First Class Honours in English Literature in 1994. He is a contributing editor of The Week magazine, and occasionally writes book reviews for The Mail on Sunday.

In the summer of 1995, Charles was approached for recruitment by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). A year later he moved to Montreal where he began working on a novel based on his experiences with MI6. A Spy By Nature was bought in a two-book deal by Penguin in 1999.

In 2001, Charles moved to Madrid with his wife. His second novel, The Hidden Man, was published in the summer of 2003. A sequel to A Spy By Nature, entitled The Spanish Game, was published in 2006. Typhoon, a thriller about a clandestine American plot to destabilise China on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, was published in 2008.

Meanwhile, film rights to A Spy By Nature have been bought by Kudos, producers of the acclaimed BBC series Spooks. He is represented by the literary agents Janklow and Nesbit UK. For details, contact: queries@janklow.co.uk