McCracken, Robert: - Robert McCracken was born in Belfast in 1959 but spent some of his childhood in Australia. He studied chemistry at the University of Ulster and gained a PhD in Agricultural Food Science from Queen's University Belfast. He worked for more than thirty years in scientific research related to global food safety.He enjoys reading; Patricia Highsmith, James Hilton, John O'Farrell and Colin Dexter are among his favourite authors. His other interests include, listening to blues and progressive music of the sixties and seventies, church choral singing, Ulster Rugby, and British and Irish history. He is married and lives in County Down, Northern Ireland.