James Riordan travelled the world collecting folktales and published over thirty volumes of tales from different countries. The Twelve Labours of Hercules won the UK Reading Association Award 1998. He was Emeritus Professor at the University of Surry and Visiting Professor at the University of Worcester, as well as holding honorary degrees from Birmingham, London, Moscow and Grenoble. He regularly reviewed children's books for The Times., and his autobiography, Comrade Jim: the spy who played for Spartak, was published in 2008 by Fourth Estate. He also wrote ten novels for young people. His first, Sweet Clarinet, won the NASEN award in 1999 and was nominated for the Whitbread Prize in 1998. Match of Death won the South Lanarkshire Book Award in 2004, and The Gift was nominated for the NASEN award in 2006. He published a novel on slavery, Rebel Cargo, with Frances Lincoln in 2007. James Riordan died in 2012.

Christmas Books of the Year: 'Blood Runner', almost a work of "docu-fiction", is inspired by Josiah Thugwane who, at Atlanta in 1996 became the first black South African to win an Olympic gold medal. It's a moving story which take the fictional Sam from the worst of apartheid to acheive Thugwane did in real life.

James Riordan travelled the world collecting folktales and published over thirty volumes of tales from different countries. The Twelve Labours of Hercules won the UK Reading Association Award 1998. He was Emeritus Professor at the University of Surry and Visiting Professor at the University of Worcester, as well as holding honorary degrees from Birmingham, London, Moscow and Grenoble. He regularly reviewed children's books for The Times., and his autobiography, Comrade Jim: the spy who played for Spartak, was published in 2008 by Fourth Estate. He also wrote ten novels for young people. His first, Sweet Clarinet, won the NASEN award in 1999 and was nominated for the Whitbread Prize in 1998. Match of Death won the South Lanarkshire Book Award in 2004, and The Gift was nominated for the NASEN award in 2006. He published a novel on slavery, Rebel Cargo, with Frances Lincoln in 2007. James Riordan died in 2012.

Christmas Books of the Year: 'Blood Runner', almost a work of "docu-fiction", is inspired by Josiah Thugwane who, at Atlanta in 1996 became the first black South African to win an Olympic gold medal. It's a moving story which take the fictional Sam from the worst of apartheid to acheive Thugwane did in real life.

James Riordan travelled the world collecting folktales and published over thirty volumes of tales from different countries. The Twelve Labours of Hercules won the UK Reading Association Award 1998. He was Emeritus Professor at the University of Surry and Visiting Professor at the University of Worcester, as well as holding honorary degrees from Birmingham, London, Moscow and Grenoble. He regularly reviewed children's books for The Times., and his autobiography, Comrade Jim: the spy who played for Spartak, was published in 2008 by Fourth Estate. He also wrote ten novels for young people. His first, Sweet Clarinet, won the NASEN award in 1999 and was nominated for the Whitbread Prize in 1998. Match of Death won the South Lanarkshire Book Award in 2004, and The Gift was nominated for the NASEN award in 2006. He published a novel on slavery, Rebel Cargo, with Frances Lincoln in 2007. James Riordan died in 2012.

Christmas Books of the Year: 'Blood Runner', almost a work of "docu-fiction", is inspired by Josiah Thugwane who, at Atlanta in 1996 became the first black South African to win an Olympic gold medal. It's a moving story which take the fictional Sam from the worst of apartheid to acheive Thugwane did in real life.