About Mark Pepper

By now, Mark Pepper really should be on his fourth wife and in rehab at some idyllic retreat in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. Graduating from RADA in 1990, he believed he would be a Hollywood star by the time the U.S. hosted the World Cup four years later. It didn’t work out that way. His acting career was spasmodic, to say the least. There were high points: peeing on the Aidensfield Arms hearth-fire in the first-ever episode of Heartbeat; taking Lulu hostage in the Christmas special ten years later; acting with icons like Tom Bell and Helen Mirren; and popping up in Coronation Street several times. Mark quickly turned to writing as an alternative source of expression. His first novel, The Short Cut, was published in hardcover by Hodder & Stoughton in 1996 and his second novel, Man on a Murder Cycle, was released by the same publisher in 1997. Veteran Avenue was completed a few years later but, as the pressures of earning a decent living and supporting his family took precedence, was placed on the back-burner.

He is delighted to have been adopted by the Urbane family, and finally seeing Veteran Avenue in the hands of readers.