David Gilman
Agent: Isobel Dixon
Assistant: Sian Ellis-Martin
Biography: Award-winning screenwriter, who has written for successful long-running series like DALZIEL AND PASCOE and A TOUCH OF FROST.
David Gilman lives in Devon. He was a firefighter, soldier, photographer, then award-winning screenwriter and writer of an acclaimed adventure series for young readers, before turning to writing his much-beloved and bestselling MASTER OF WAR series full-time. The series, featuring Thomas Blackstone, has been widely reviewed as a must-read for Bernard Cornwell fans. Titles have featured several times on the Der Spiegel bestseller lists in Germany.
THE LAST HORSEMAN, a standalone novel following Irish involvement in the Anglo-Boer War, was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize and his new contemporary thriller series, THE ENGLISHMAN, starring ex-Foreign Legion soldier Dan Raglan, was longlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize as well. He is also the author of a popular WWII espionage thriller, NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARIS.
'I'm totally bedazzled. I'd never thought that another writer could rival Bernard Cornwell when it came to dramatizing battles, but David is giving him a real run for his money. The battle scenes are so realistic it is almost like time-traveling, though definitely not for the faint of heart. Thomas is an incredibly appealing and sympathetic character. And the level of suspense is ratcheted up to a truly brutal level, for it is impossible for a reader to predict what will be coming next' –Sharon Penman.
THE KNIFE MAKER OF VENICE
Historical Fiction, 512 pages, Head of Zeus, August 2026
1604. As pirates seeking slaves to sell in the markets of North Africa terrorise the coasts of Europe, headstrong Richard Sheriff and his sister Elizabeth are torn from their Devonshire home and thrust into a waking nightmare.
Richard’s skills as a blacksmith see him fetch a high price, but the pirate captain has other plans for Elizabeth and once they are separated, Richard has no idea of his sister's fate. They must both learn to survive on a deadly voyage into the unknown.
Sold into servitude in Venice: glittering, vicious city of secrets, he is apprenticed to a knife maker. Richard’s talents soon win him renown... but haunted by his sister’s absence, he vows never to stop looking for her, knowing she would do the same for him.
First he must survive that city of ghosts. Will the siblings live to see each other again, or will they join the myriads lost to Venice, where life is cheap, profit is all, and escape nigh-on impossible?
RAGE OF SWORDS (Master of War 9)
Historical Fiction, 528 pages, Head of Zeus, Nov 2025
1368. Amidst the Hundred Years' War, alliances must be brokered. The Duke of Clarence, second son of King Edward III, journeys from Paris to marry the daughter of the powerful Lord of Milan. Little does he know that he is heading into a trap.
Luckily the Duke is preceded on the road to Milan by Sir Thomas Blackstone, Master of War, on an urgent mission of his own. Blackstone must get his hands on the gold the Prince of Wales needs to wage successful war in France.
But there is a price on Blackstone's head, and assassins willing to risk everything to claim it before he even gets to Milan. He must outwit a succession of ever deadlier enemies, and the Master of War has other foes to conquer: the ambitions of his son Henry, who has inherited his father's knack of getting into scrapes. Scrapes that could end in a hangman's noose...
RESURRECTION (The Englishman 3)
Thriller, 432 pages, Head of Zeus (Aries), January 2023
Somewhere in the Sahara, on the desolate border between Sudan and Chad, a P51 Mustang with long-range drop tanks slowly emerges from the dunes.
Inside, the skeletalized remains of a man missing for three decades.
His flying jacket bears no insignia, a worn leather attaché case lies by his side, held securely by a manacle around his left wrist. Inside a document men will kill for. Die for.
The sands of time have shifted, and whoever finds that aircraft finds information that could expose the most valuable spy the UK intelligence service has ever known.
The British, the French, and the Russians are on the trail.
And so is Raglan.
MONKEY & ME
9-11, Contemporary, 240 pages
Templar Feb 2014.
Nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Award 2014
One brave boy, one escaped chimpanzee, one adventure of a lifetime… A heartwarming story packed with guts and humour.