Susy McPhee was born and raised in Liverpool. She studied Russian and karate at St. Andrews University, harbouring vague notions of becoming a spy. While waiting for MI5, the KGB or the FBI to come calling, she trained as a technical author with ICL in Berkshire, and set about trying to inject life into what was traditionally not the most creative of disciplines. From such inauspicious beginnings her career led her into areas that came pretty close to her spy ambitions, including training rocket scientists in the former Soviet Union. She moved to Scotland from the South of England with her husband and three small daughters twenty-two years ago, and now lives and works in Crieff.