James Runcie is the author of twelve novels, four plays and a memoir. He is also an award-winning documentary film-maker, playwright and literary curator. He has been Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, London, and Commissioning Editor for Arts on BBC Radio 4. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of both the Crime Writer’s Association and The Detection Club.
He is best known for the best-selling Grantchester Mysteries a six-book series featuring the clerical sleuth Canon Sidney Chambers, which has been adapted into eleven television series by ITV/PBS and shown in over 120 countries.
His novel The Great Passion, about the composer Johann Sebastian Bach was a Times/ Sunday Times Book of the Year for Historical Fiction.
