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Michael Ridpath

British writer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ373651 ↗
Source-derived summary

Michael Ridpath is an English author of thrillers involving the world of high finance, as well as his Fire and Ice crime series set in Iceland, standalone novels and historical fiction. He was born in Devon in 1961 and grew up in Yorkshire. He was educated at Millfield School and Merton College, Oxford, and spent eight years working as a bond trader at an international bank in the City of London. His past employers include Saudi International Bank and Apax Partners.

Ridpath lives in north London with three children and his wife, Barbara Ridpath. His latest work is the Fire & Ice series about an Icelandic detective called Magnus Jonson.

Bibliography

Financial thrillers

Free to Trade (1995)

Trading Reality (1996)

The Marketmaker (1998)

Final Venture (2000)

The Predator (2001)

Fatal Error (2003)

Alex Calder

On The Edge (2005)

See No Evil (2006)

Magnus Iceland Mysteries (Fire and Ice)

Where The Shadows Lie (Corvus, June 2010)

66° North (Corvus, May 2011)

Edge of Nowhere (Corvus, December 2011)

Meltwater (June 2012)

Sea of Stone (May 2014)

The Polar Bear Killing (2015)

The Super Recogniser of Vik (2016)

The Wanderer (September 2018)

Death in Dalvik (2022)

Whale Fjord (2024)

Conrad de Lancey – pre-WWII & WWII spy novels

Traitor's Gate (Head of Zeus, June 2013)

Shadows of War (Head of Zeus, January 2015)

Stand-alone novels

Amnesia (Corvus, May 2017)

Launch Code (Corvus, 2019)

The Diplomat's Wife (Corvus, 2021)

Short stories

"Partnership Track" (2005), published in The Detection Collection, edited by Simon Brett.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Michael Ridpath” as british writer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1961, 1995, 1996, 1998—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1961-03-07. The account is most persuasive where Michael, Ridpath and British can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british writer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q373651. VIAF identifies the subject as 79384866. The Library of Congress control number is n94074760. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 1995, 1996 and 1998.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Michael Ridpath”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Michael Ridpath primary sources, Michael Ridpath archive and Michael research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Michael Ridpath”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Michael Ridpath” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.