Martin Austin Fido was a university professor, true crime writer and broadcaster. His many books include The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper, The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard, Serial Killers, and The Murder Guide to London. He is also one of the authors of The complete Jack the Ripper A to Z.
After leaving Balliol College, Oxford, in 1966, where he had been a junior research fellow in English, he went to the University of Leeds where he lectured in English until 1973. In 1971 he went to Michigan State University in the USA where he was a visiting associate professor for one year, and in 1973 he became a reader in English Literature and head of the English department at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. In the West Indies he was active in theatre and educational broadcasting.
In 1983 he returned to England and became a freelance writer and broadcaster, specialising in true crime. He broadcast a weekly radio programme called Murder After Midnight on London's LBC Radio from 1987 to 2001, some of which were produced and released commercially on cassette and CD by his friend Paul Savory.