California native Steve Strid is best known for the best-selling marketing book, The Viking Manifesto (Marshall Cavendish) which has been translated into 17 languages and to date is still the only book in the genre with sex, drugs, violence...and ethics. Over the years, Steve Strid has published nearly 100 articles in publications such as The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Los Angeles Times – from humorous columns to investigative journalism to the joys of paper pulp bleaching. He has written ads, commercials, videos and web pages for everything from vodka to brain surgery equipment for multinationals such as Absolut Vodka, Ericsson, Sandvik Coromant, SCA, Baby Björn and ASSA Abloy. His one-man play The Vodka Wars, directed by Ingmar Bergman protégé Hans Klinga, ran six-months in Stockholm. He divides his time between Sweden, Spain and the US. The Malibu Book of the Dead is his first novel.