Anna Mazzola

Anna Mazzola is a British historical crime fiction author and criminal defense barrister. She won the CWA Gold Dagger for The Book of Secrets (2025). Her novels are set in Victorian England and France and combine meticulous historical research with propulsive plotting. Mazzola worked as a criminal defense lawyer before and during her fiction career. Her debut The Unseeing (2016) was based on the true story of a Victorian woman convicted of murder. Her subsequent novels The Story Keeper and The Clockwork Girl explore further dark corners of nineteenth-century social history. She was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger for The Clockwork Girl in 2023 before winning outright for The Book of Secrets in 2025. Mazzola is known for bringing authentic legal and historical knowledge to her fiction.