JACK LUDLOW is the pen name of writer David Donachie,who was born in Edinburgh in 1944. He has had a variety of jobs, selling everything from business machines to soap. He has always had an abiding interest in the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which he drew on for the many novels he has set in that period. Rome, in the days of the Republic, is another area of special interest. The author of a number of best-selling books, he now lives in Deal with his partner, the author Sarah Grazebrook.