Davis was born in Birmingham and after taking a degree in English literature at Oxford University (Lady Margaret Hall),[1] she became a civil servant for 13 years.
"[4] Davis suffered from the eye condition keratoconus from childhood, and in adulthood had a corneal transplant, about which she has said: "A stranger's generosity freed me from years of pain and anxiety" and urges her readers to carry a donor card.
She tried again, and her first novel featuring the Roman "detective", Marcus Didius Falco, The Silver Pigs (1989), set in the same time period, was the start of her runaway success as a writer of historical whodunnits.
In 2012, Davis and her publishers, Hodder & Stoughton in the UK and St. Martin's Press in the US, announced that she was writing a new series of books centred on Flavia Albia, Falco's British-born adopted daughter and "an established female investigator".
[10] Davis has won many literary awards, including, in 2011, the Cartier Diamond Dagger of the Crime Writers' Association given to authors who have made an outstanding lifetime contribution to the genre.