Matt Blake is an award-winning journalist who has written for the  Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Grazia, Esquire, and Men's Health, and is a former crime reporter for the  Daily Mirror and  Independent. During his journalism career, he has covered everything from gang murder and police corruption to terrorism and serial killing - reporting from crime scenes, doorsteps, and courtrooms on some of Britain's most high-profile criminal cases. He once unknowingly interviewed a murderer in his own front room. His story House of Horror , which appeared in the Guardian and formed the basis of Hearth of Darkness, proved an international success, garnering more than half a million reads in its first week of publication alone.  Hearth of Darkness is his first book.