Chris Blake was born and raised in Auckland. He served briefly in the New Zealand Army's Reserve Force before joining the New Zealand Police in 2006. He is currently Detective Senior Sergeant of the Behavioural Science Unit in Wellington, he has been in the NZ Police for 18 years. His fiction debut novel, The Sound of Her Voice (published under the pseudonym Nathan Blackwell to distance the real crimes and the fiction), was a double finalist in the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Awards for best novel and best first novel. Outside of the writing, the cases are real, the people are real, and the tragedies are real. Blake grips readers with his raw, unflinching authenticity, drawn from the depths of lived experience. Chris was an assistant storyboarder for season two of the crime drama television series, The Gulf, released in 2021. His latest thriller Softly Calls the Devil was published by Echo in 2025.