-- All the Tea in China 'For those who have learnt to relish his elegant, nasty thrillers, Bonfiglioli is a name hard to forget. This farrago represents a change from the thrillers - a good clean salt-water yarn for the decadent' -- Independent Kyril Bonfiglioli was born on the south coast of England in 1928 of an English mother and Italo-Slovene father. After studying at Oxford and five years in the army, he took up a career as an art dealer, like his eccentric creation Charlie Mortdecai. He lived in Oxford, Lancashire, Ireland and Jersey, where he died in 1985. He wrote four Charlie Mortdecai novels, and a fifth historical Mortdecai novel (about a distinguished ancestor).