Caitlin Davies

Caitlin Davies was born in London in 1964. She is the author of 14 books (eight narrative non-fiction and six novels), an award-winning journalist, mentor, English teacher, and trained private investigator.

She started her writing career after moving to Botswana in 1989, where she became a human rights journalist and editor of the Okavango Observer. After being arrested for ‘causing fear and alarm’, and then acquitted for ‘contempt of court’, she returned to the UK, writing education and careers features for the Independent.

Many of her early books are set in the Okavango Delta, where she lived for 12 eventful years, including her memoir Place of Reeds (2005). 

Her most recent books explore the overlooked history of women within the UK justice system, from the perspective of prisoners, prison officers, professional criminals and private detectives. Bad Girls: The Rebels and Renegades of Holloway Prison, the first full history of the UK’s most famous jail for women, was nominated for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing (2019).  

Her latest book, Private Inquiries: The Secret History of Female Sleuths (2023), tells the story of the UK’s leading female private eyes from the 1850s to the present.

Caitlin has been an RLF Fellow at the University of Westminster, the V&A and Science Museum, and Kent and Medway NHS Partnership Trust. She lives by the sea in Kent, decoupaging oyster shells in her spare time.