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Jim Kelly is the son of a Scotland Yard detective – something which would later inspire his writing. After studying geography – especially landscape – at Sheffield University Jim went into newspapers, ending up as education correspondent of the Financial Times. During this time, he moved to live Ely, in the Cambridgeshire Fens – a move inspired by The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers, his favourite English crime novel. He says of his work, “Sayers’ combination of landscape and plot is always my aim”.
While being a long-distance commuter from Ely to London, Jim wrote his first two books on the train – both are set in and around Ely, and feature a journalist, Philip Dryden, who works on the local paper, The Crow. The seven Dryden books won an award called the Dagger in the Library – a crime-writing ‘Oscars’. His second series, based on the North Norfolk Coast, won the New Angle Prize for Literature. His last three crime novels were set in Cambridge during WW2 and were nominated for an Historical Dagger. Last year saw the publication of The Silent Child – an historical thriller, under the name J G Kelly. Jim will be chatting to Lucinda Hawksley on the Inside Story on 12 October, a few days after the publication of his latest book,The White Lie – based on Captain Scott’s Last Expedition. Join them at 12pm and become part of the Goldster Conversation.