On September 9, 1962, Eva Elisabeth "Liza" Marklund was born in Pålmark, a small village near Piteå in the North of Sweden, just below the Arctic circle.  She left school at 16 and traveled around the world, working as a waitress in London or an orange-picker in Israel, she lived in Greece and in the USA, amongst others.

At 21 she gave birth to her first child, and she started attending journalism school.  She worked as a journalist over the 15 years that followed, covering politics, economics and crime for some of Scandinavia's largest dailies.  She was among others Editor-in-Chief of a morning daily and Executive Editor for a television news program near the end of her journalism career.

She debuted with "Hidden" and since 1998 when The Bomber was released she is a full-time novelist.  Today she lives with Mikael Aspeborg, a producer. She lives with her husband and three children in southern Stockholm and southern Spain.