Neil Cross

Neil Claude Cross (né Gadd; born 9 February 1969) is a British novelist and scriptwriter, best known as the creator of the drama series Luther and Hard Sun. He is also the showrunner for the TV adaptation of The Mosquito Coast, which began airing in 2021. Life and career Neil Claude Gadd was born in Bristol on 9 February 1969, to unhappily married parents, Alan and Edna ( Noyes) Gadd. He was the youngest of their four children. His mother ran away when he was five, returned two years later and took him to Edinburgh with Derek Cross, a White South African who was to become his stepfather and whose surname he would adopt. Neil Cross graduated from the University of Leeds in 1994 with a degree in English and Theology, and received his Masters in English in the year following. His initial career was solely as a novelist, beginning with Mr In-Between, which was published in 1998 (and adapted into a film in 2001). He later worked into television, writing an episode of the spy drama Spooks in 2006 before becoming lead writer on the sixth and seventh series of the show. He has written for The Fixer and Doctor Who ("The Rings of Akhaten" and "Hide"). In 2010 he wrote a new adaptation of Whistle and I'll Come to You, from the story by M. R. James.