Andro Linklate was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on December 10, 1944. He was the youngest child of the novelist Eric Linklater. He attended Belhaven Hill school in Dunbar, East Lothian, and then Winchester College, before studying modern history at New College, Oxford. He taught at a London comprehensive school until he was asked to complete the history of the Black Watch regiment that his father had been writing at the time of his death in 1974. It was published three years later and was well received. His other works include Amazing Maisie and the Cold Porridge Brigade, Wild People, The Code of Love, Measuring America, The Fabric of America, An Artist in Treason, Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die, and Owning the Earth. He died from a heart attack on November 3, 2013 at the age of 68.