The 2015 novel "Holy Island", featuring DCI Ryan, was the first in a series of mysteries by which author?

L. J. Ross (the pen name of Louise Ross) is the bestselling author of the DCI Ryan series of romantic suspense thrillers. Her debut novel, "Holy Island", was released in January 2015 and, by May, it had reached number one in the Amazon UK chart. Its sequel, "Sycamore Gap", released in September 2015, is also a UK bestseller. She has released further books in the DCI Ryan series, amassing a further nine UK #1s, and she is reported to have sold over 4,000,000 copies.

Ross was born and grew up in Northumberland. She completed undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Law at King's College London, where she met her husband, and she continued her studies in Paris and Florence. After spending most of her twenties working in the City as a lawyer, she began to feel it was time for change.

After the birth of her son, she wrote the first draft of "Holy Island", having been inspired by the atmospheric beauty of Lindisfarne (a tidal island off the northeast coast of England known as Holy Island), a place she knew well from childhood. Following its success, she now writes full-time. The second book in her series of DCI Ryan novels, "Sycamore Gap", is set in Hadrian's Wall country and subsequent DCI Ryan novels continue the Northumbrian locations, with stories set in Northumberland, County Durham and Newcastle.