About


Who is Ed James?

© Bob McDevitt
Ed James is a Scottish author who writes crime fiction novels across multiple series and in multiple locations.

His latest series is set in the Scottish Borders, where Ed now lives, starring DI Rob Marshall – a criminal profiler turned detective, investigating serial murders in a beautiful landscape.

Set four hundred miles south on the gritty streets of East London, his bestselling DI Fenchurch series features a cop with little to lose and a kidnapped daughter to find.

His Police Scotland books are fronted by multiple detectives based in Edinburgh, including Scott Cullen, a young Edinburgh Detective investigating crimes from the bottom rung of the career ladder he’s desperate to climb, and Craig Hunter, a detective shoved back into uniform who struggles to overcome his PTSD from his time in the army.

Putting Dundee on the tartan noir map, the DS Vicky Dodds books feature a driven female detective struggling to combine her complex home life with a heavy caseload.

Formerly an IT project manager, Ed filled his weekly commute to London by writing on planes, trains and automobiles. He now writes full-time and lives in the Scottish Borders with a menagerie of rescued animals.

Newsletter

Sign up to Ed’s regular-ish newsletter to get an email every time he’s got something on preorder or release. He drops a free novella every so often, such as FALSE START, a prequel to the Marshall books, and CUDDLY TOY, a 20,000 word story starring Craig Hunter. Click the link below to sign up:

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Do you have a literary agent?
A.
I do. His name is David Headley at DHH Literary Agency. His details are here:

https://www.dhhliteraryagency.com/david-h-headley

Q. When is your next book coming out?
A. This is always changing. Few ways to keep up with it: this site for starters, subscribe to my regular newsletter, or you can follow me on Facebook, Threads, Instagram or Twitter.

Q. When is your next book coming out?

A. This is always changing. Few ways to keep up with it: this site for starters, subscribe to my regular newsletter, or you can follow me on Facebook, Threads, Instagram or Twitter.

Q. How do I contact you?
A. It’s all over here at my contact page. Email is usually best — I reply to every email so if I haven’t replied to you then something technical has gone wrong.

If it’s urgent, hit me up on Facebook.

Q. Are your books available in audiobook?
A. The DI Rob Marshall and DI Simon Fenchurch books are all available on Audible, narrated by Angus King.

The Vicky Dodds books are being added in late 2024/25, again narrated by Angus.

The Police Scotland books will be added from mid-2025.

All future releases will come out on the same date as ebook and paperback, subject to it getting through their approval pipeline.

Q. Have any of your books been turned into film or tv?
A. Not yet. If you’re a film/TV producer or agent, contact my agent, David Headley:

https://www.dhhliteraryagency.com/david-h-headley

Q. Love your covers! Who is your cover designer?

A. Me. I do all of my self-published covers and, as I don’t have a publisher, that’s all of them.

Q. Who handles the ebook and print formatting for your self-published titles?

A. Me. I use Vellum to output lovely Kindle and paperback files. It’s great.

Q. In what order should I read your books?

A. Have a look at the series reading order, but they are a bit more streamlined now. The Police Scotland books contain what was previously the Cullen, Hunter and Cullen & Bain series. The only hard continuity with them is with the Vicky Dodds books, which has an overlap with Fenchurch. But if you read them all in the order they were published, except for Dead in the Water, which should be first, it’ll all make sense. The Rob Marshall books are separate from them (they do exist in the same universe).

Q. Will you write another Cullen novel?

A. Not sure. I think The Dead End has a nice end to the series, but never say never.

Q. Why are your ebooks only available on Kindle?

A. I tried selling on other channels, e.g. Nook/Kobo/iBooks, and nobody bought them. Amazon’s KDP gives you lots of benefits for going exclusive, and it works for me. My books are DRM-free so the files can be bought on the Kindle Store and transferred to any e-reading device using cables and stuff. Really easy, even my dad can do it.