Susie Steiner: Detective novels writer dies aged 51

Novelist and former journalist Susie Steiner, whose best-known writing includes the Manon Bradshaw detective series, has died at the age of 51 after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.

Steiner's second book Missing, Presumed was shortlisted for 2017's Theakston crime novel of the year award.

She had previously been a journalist for 20 years, writing for The Guardian, Evening Standard, Daily Telegraph and The Times.

She was also registered blind.

Steiner wrote in 2016 about losing her eyesight to retinitis pigmentosa, telling the Independent: "My sight loss, which has begun to limit me only in the last five years, has accompanied an increase in my creative output as a novelist. The two seem intertwined, as if the less I can see of the world, the more I can focus inwardly."

In May 2019, she was diagnosed with brain cancer, a grade 4 glioblastoma, and her website said she spent most of 2019 undergoing treatment: six hours of brain surgery, chemo radiation, and six cycles of chemotherapy.

Her first novel, Homecoming, was published in 2013 and was well received by critics, and Missing, Presumed was a Sunday Times bestseller, as well as a pick for the Richard and Judy Book Club and a standout book for The Guardian and Wall Street Journal.

The sequel to this, Persons Unknown, along with the third book in the series, 2020's Remain Silent, were both longlisted for the Theakstons prize.

She told the Guardian in 2020 that she had written Remain Silent with a "nine-centimetre tumour pushing my brain over its midline. But I didn't know about it".

"So much of the experience of cancer is the waiting rooms, the hard chairs, the inequality between patients and medical staff - you feel so vulnerable in your elasticated slacks with your terrible hair, while they march about, passes swinging, blow-dried and in their normal-world clothes," she said. "Waiting for them, terrified, in the Room of Bad News."

Her agent Sarah Ballard told the Guardian that Steiner's "glorious talent as a writer was rooted in her deep appreciation of the undercurrents of human nature", adding: "Her special insight made her not just a critically acclaimed and bestselling writer, but also a generous and sharply funny friend who will be missed by everyone who knew her."

Her publisher, Suzie Dooré, told the newspaper: "Susie was an extraordinary person and a wonderful writer. Personally, I am proud to have also counted her as a friend, and will always remember and cherish her quick wit and brutal honesty, both attributes she was able to pass on to her series character Manon Bradshaw.

"A train trip to a festival with Susie was guaranteed to bring hilarity, oversharing, Percy Pigs and mini bottles of wine. She was truly unique, full of warmth and incredibly perceptive."

Steiner leaves her husband and two children.