Simon Kernick (born February 1967 in Slough, Berkshire) is a British thriller/crime writer now living in Oxfordshire with his two daughters. Kernick attended Gillotts School, a comprehensive in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. Whilst he was a student his jobs included fruit-picker and Christmas-tree uprooter. He graduated from Brighton Polytechnic in 1991 with a degree in humanities.

Kernick had a passion for crime fiction writing from a young age and produced many short stories during his time at polytechnic. After graduating Kernick joined MMT Computing in London in early 1992, where a relative was the Chairman and Managing Director. He left the company after four years in the hope of trying to secure a publishing deal. Despite interest from a number of publishers Kernick was unable to secure a deal, so he joined the sales force of the specialist IT and Business Consultancy Metaskil plc in Aldermaston, Berkshire in 1998 where he remained until he secured his first book deal The Business of Dying in September 2001.

His novel Relentless was recommended on Richard & Judy's Summer book club 2007. It was the 8th best-selling paperback, and the best-selling thriller in the UK in the same year.