Michael Ridpath

Michael Ridpath is a British novelist and former financier whose writing spans financial thrillers, crime fiction and twentieth-century historical espionage. Born in Devon and raised in rural Yorkshire, he studied history at university before spending twelve years in the City of London as a bond trader and venture capitalist. His first novel, Free to Trade, drew directly on that world and became an international bestseller, allowing him to leave finance and write full time. After several more financial thrillers he created the Magnus Iceland Mysteries, beginning with Where the Shadows Lie in 2010. Ridpath later moved increasingly towards historical fiction, particularly stories involving espionage, political extremism and the tensions of Europe before and during the Second World War.

His standalone historical thrillers include Traitor’s Gate, set in Berlin in 1938 as resistance to Hitler begins to form within German military and diplomatic circles; Shadows of War, centred on the months leading to the outbreak of the Second World War; Amnesia, which links a contemporary investigation with events in Germany and Britain during the 1930s and 1940s; Launch Code, a Cold War thriller involving a British nuclear submarine in the 1980s; and The Diplomat’s Wife, another story of pre-war espionage. In 2026 Ridpath began the Foreign Correspondent Mysteries with Operation Berlin, set in Berlin in 1930 and featuring Great War veteran Sir Archie Laverick and ambitious American correspondent Esme as they investigate murder amid the political instability of the Weimar Republic. Further instalments are planned for Vienna in 1931 and Paris in 1932. His historical fiction is particularly concerned with espionage, divided loyalties and individuals confronted by the rise of authoritarian politics in twentieth-century Europe.