James Oswald
James Oswald is represented by Juliet Mushens
James started writing comic scripts while at Aberdeen University and continued after graduation because nobody would give him a real job. His first attempt at crime fiction, Natural Causes, introduced the world to Detective Inspector Tony McLean, and was short-listed for the CWA Debut Dagger in 2007. Its follow up, The Books of Souls, was short-listed the following year. When neither of them set the publishing world on fire he decided to go it alone and publish them as e-books. Combined downloads of the two titles topped 300,000 in their first six months.
His first three Inspector McLean books were sold at auction to Penguin, and in 19 other countries around the world. There are now thirteen books in the series, with the most recent, For Our Sins, released in February 2024. Book fourteen, The Rest Is Death, will be published in February 2025.
James has also written a second crime fiction series, featuring Detective Constable Constance Fairchild. No Time to Cry was published by Wildfire in July 2018, Nothing To Hide in 2019, and the third book in the series, Nowhere to Run, in 2021.
James has been a Sunday Times bestseller multiple times. He was short-listed for the National Book Awards New Writer of the Year award in 2013, has been short-listed for the CWA Dagger in the Library three times and made the McIlvanney Prize long list twice. Natural Causes was a Richard and Judy Book Club Summer Read of 2013. One of these years he plans on winning something.
Under the cunning pseudonym JD Oswald, James has written the five book epic fantasy, The Ballad of Sir Benfro, published by Penguin. September 2024 sees a standalone novel, Broken Ghosts, under the same name, published by Wildfire.
When he is not tied to his desk, he runs a 350 acre livestock farm in North East Fife, where he raises pedigree Highland cattle.
Praise for James Oswald:
‘The new Ian Rankin’ — Daily Record
‘Oswald's writing is a class above’ — Express
‘Crime fiction's next big thing’ — Sunday Telegraph
‘A wonderful, fast-paced thriller.’ — Michael Wood
‘Literary sensation...James' overnight success has drawn comparisons with the meteoric rise of EL James and her Fifty Shades of Grey series, Daily Mail
‘Oswald is among the leaders in the new batch of excellent Scottish crime writers’ — Daily Mail
‘The hallmarks of Val McDermid or Ian Rankin: it's dark, violent, noirish’ — The Herald
‘A star of Scotland's burgeoning crime fiction scene’ — Daily Record
‘An absolute triumph. Brilliant and terrifying . . . A surefire hit.’ — Jo Spain, author of With Our Blessing
‘Another rip-roaring tryst with the irrational fears that surface from deep within our collective psyche when faced with the chilling prospect that evil forces might just exist after all. A fear Oswald gleefully manipulates with a sharp turn of phrase and deft touch of Grand Guignol.’ — Líam Rudden, Edinburgh News
‘A dark and chilling novel. James Oswald is one of this country's consistently superior crime writers. A must read series.’ — Michael Wood, author of DCI Matilda Darke series
Rights sold:
The Inspector McLean series: Penguin (UK, Books 1-8), Wildfire (UK, Book 9 onwards), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US), Hermes (Bulgaria), Profil (Croatia), Bragelonne (France), Goldmann (Germany), Keter (Israel), Zvaigzne ABC Publishers (Latvia), Oceano de Mexico (Latin America - Spanish), Jaguar (Poland), AST (Russia), Planeta (Spain), Modernista (Sweden), Egmont (Turkey)
The Constance Fairchild series: Wildfire (UK)