Les Cowan grew up in central Scotland and studied English at Edinburgh University then Social Work at Stirling. There then followed five years of mixed social work practice including lots of criminal justice work. Besides contact with other professionals in the system including police, lawyers, the courts, prisons, etc. this meant a lot of involvement in the daily lives of young people and adults who were the "customers" of the system.
After some special projects, a stint of teaching and time in senior management Les took a jump into the unknown by starting his own IT business, Information Plus Ltd. in 1998. This ran successfully for ten years and picked up a bunch of awards.
Life then took another unexpected turn with the apparently casual decision to have a crack at learning Spanish. This soon turned into a bit of an obsession eventually leading to two years teaching English in Madrid and five years in Galicia.
Like many novelists, Les initially wrote just to see if he had that legendary novel inside and if it could be coaxed out into the open. What eventually became Benefit of the Doubt took about a year in first draft and was then improved on and off for the next six years before the fateful decision to send a few chapters and a synopsis to Lion Fiction. The response was positive and the rest is history...
The sequel to Benefit, All that Glitters was published in June 2018 and the third volume Sins of the Fathers in October 2019. Volumes four, five and six are also written and will appear in due course.
As well as the David Hidalgo novels, Les was a regular columnist for Orkney Today newspaper over five years (columns subsequently pulled together and published as Loose Talk Collected - available direct from the author) and has also written a cyclist's travel guide Orkney by Bike (available from the author in PDF format).
Les is a member of the Crime Writers Association.
