Stephen Bentley is a former UK police Detective Sergeant, pioneering undercover cop, and barrister. He is now a freelance writer and an occasional contributor to Huffington Post UK on undercover policing and mental health issues.

His bestselling memoir, 'Undercover: Operation Julie - The Inside Story,' is a frank and fascinating insight into his undercover detective experiences during Operation Julie - an elite group of detectives who successfully investigated one of the world's largest drug rings. It has now been adapted for a feature film.

Stephen also writes crime fiction in a fast-paced plot-driven style including the Steve Regan Undercover Cop Thriller and the Detective Matt Deal Thriller series.

One of his short stories, 'The Rose Slayer,' won the SIA murder mystery competition in 2018, and has now been published in an anthology of murder mystery short stories, titled 'Death Among Us.'

His fiction draws heavily on his law enforcement background adding that ingredient of authenticity about which the legendary Raymond Chandler opined, "Fiction in any form has always intended to be realistic," when writing about "the detective story" in his essay 'The Simple Art of Murder'(1950). Stephen subscribes to that school of thought.

When he isn't writing, Stephen relaxes on the beaches of the Philippines with his family where he now lives, often with a book and a cold beer in hand.