A Compact Biography...

Born in Cambridge in 1967. Grew up in Hemingford Abbots, a village on the River Ouse between Huntingdon and St Ives. School in Hemingford Abbots, then St Faith's and The Leys in Cambridge. Studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at St John's College, Cambridge University (1985-1988). Worked for Chadwyck-Healey (1989-1991). Lived in Cambridge and then Apethorpe (Northamptonshire). Joined the Department of the Environment (1992) and moved to Bristol. Seconded to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and moved to Brussels as Environment Attache at the UK Permanent Representation to the European Union (1993-1995); returned to DOE as Private Secretary to James Clappison MP. Seconded to the Prime Minister's Office in 1998 as strategy adviser; promoted to Senior Civil Service in 2000; left Downing Street in 2003; set up Master in Political Communication at Kingston University; visiting Professor of Government at CIty University; set up research and communications agency Woodnewton Associates in 2006. Chair of the IVCA (2007-2009). Chair of the Green Party of England and Wales (2008-2009). Green Party Parliamentary candidate for Islington South and Finsbury (2005). Trustee of the Woodland Trust (2006 onwards). Married public law barrister Emma Dixon in 1998. Three children: Kate, Tom and William. Interests: the countryside, walking, pubs (in that order), sailing, ballet, twentieth-century British art and ceramics.

And some semi-biogrpahical thoughts...

I began writing when I was a child: I loved reading, I used to make up stories or adventures with my friends or on my own, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to write them down. I was also lucky in having a succession of English teachers who encouraged me to read widely, and in growing up in a house flled with books. But except for school essays, I don't remember ever sharing these stories with anyone.

I wrote a couple of plays at school and managed, with the help of some very supportive friends, to have them staged. But theatre was just one activity amongst many, and most of my spare time in the sixth form was spent on writing and editing magazines.

I didn'[t take up creative writing again until I was in my twenties, on holiday ina remote village in France; and for a while I wrote two or three ghost stories a year for my own amusement, or to entertain or embarrass my friends. The ghost story is a very demanding literary form: it either succeeds, or fails completely. Most of my stories fell firmly into the last category, but this taught me a lot about plotting and pace.

Meanwhile I had joined the Department of the Environment in 1992 and found I spent more and more time on non-fiction, including publishing Negotiating in the European Union in 1997 and editing the Government's Annual Report from 1998 to 2000.

I have always loved reading 'genre' books - thrillers, detective stories, spy novels, adventure yarns - as well as more substantial works. When I had the chance in the autumn of 1998 to start on a full-length work - what became Sleeping Partner - it felt right to work within a genre, if also to try and subvert it a little. I was also driven to write by a bit of home-sickness for Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, where I grew up, having by then settled in London. Perhaps as a reult, I've always been much more interested in character and place than in plot - though there is a great satisfaction if you can find a way for the mechanism to lock together neatly.

I've never considered writing full-time. It can be frustrating to have to put aside a work for weeks or months because of other commitments; but those commitments - teaching, environmental campaigning, woodland creation - are deeply rewarding in themselves. Equally, my work has taken me around the world and I've met some fascinating people. I also doubt I would have had the chance to visit Holloway Prison, or see DNA being screened at the Forensic Science Service laboratories, or work with the intelligence services had I been writing alone in a garret.

With my family a little older, and my outside commitments trimmed back a bit, I now have more time to write. My next novel is pretty much finished and I have plenty of other works underway, including a Gothic romance - another bit of fun I hope to have ready for Christmas 2010...

Thank you for reading!

James