James Riordan was born in Portsmouth in 1936 and grew up there during the war. After he left school he worked as a postman, a barman, a crate stacker, a railway clerk, and a double bass player before doing his National Service in the RAF, where he learnt Russian. After demobilization he gained degrees from Birmingham, London, and Moscow, then worked as a translator in Moscow. Back in England he lectured at Portsmouth Polytechnic and Birmingham and Bradford universities and from 1989 at Surrey University where he was Professor of Russian Studies. He wrote over thirty books and his first novel for children, Sweet Clarinet, won the NASEN Award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Book Award. James Riordan died in 2012.