Jim Riordan does a lot of things: university professor, footballer (Moscow Spartak), minor spy, storyteller, broadcaster and radical. His autobiography, COMRADE JIM, tells all. Sometimes he gets his different hats mixed up. Best of all he enjoys writing stories for young people: from picture books for toddlers (MY GRR-GREAT UNCLE TIGER) to novels, often about war which he still remembers vividly. He has won a few literary prizes – his first novel SWEET CLARINET won the National Association for Special Education Needs award in 1998 and was short-listed for the Whitbread Prize.

For most of his novels, he goes to the home of the story – whether Jamaica for REBEL CARGO, Stalingrad for THE SNIPER, and South Africa for his next novel MARATHON MAN – to see, hear, smell, taste and touch the places he is writing about.