James McGee was an army brat who grew up in Gibraltar, Germany and Northern Ireland. He has worked in banking, sales, newspapers and the airline industry, but for the last fifteen years he has been a bookseller.
 

His interest in the Napoleonic Wars dates back to his school days when he read C. S. Forrester's The Gun.

Nowadays he resides in East Sussex and manages the Tenterden branch of Ottokar’s. Ratcatcher is the first in the Hawkwood series.