Iain Ballantyne
‘Martin’s Eyes’ is Iain Ballantyne’s debut novel, his first book for Chiselbury and is partly inspired by meeting a real-life Nazi hunter while writing features for the ‘Western Morning News’.
Iain is already the author of well-received factual books. They include the award-winning ‘Killing the Bismarck’ (2010), ground-breaking ‘Hunter Killers’ (2013), highly praised ‘Arnhem: Ten Days in the Cauldron’ (2019) and ‘The Deadly Trade’ (2018). The latter was described by ‘The Times’ newspaper as ‘superbly told…consistently fascinating’.
A widely-travelled and experienced journalist, Iain has pursued a varied career.
His reporting assignments took him into Arctic Norway and the Barents Sea, to waters off Hong Kong and Kuwait, into Bosnia and to Berlin, plus venturing into the deserts of Arabia and North Africa. He has reported from Eastern Europe several times, including Russia during and after the fall of the Soviet Union.
In addition to being an evening newspaper defence reporter, Iain briefly worked for a national news agency and for some years as a freelance scriptwriter for a London-based multi-media company with offices in the Café Royal and then Golden Square.
He has commented on defence and naval history topics for radio and regional television on numerous occasions, reviewed movies on the radio and even co-devised a TV game show with a wine theme for the UK’s Channel 4 (1998). In 2021 Channel 4 broadcast a documentary based on Iain’s cinematic-style book ‘Bismarck: 24 Hours to Doom’(2016).
Awarded a Fellowship by the UK’s Maritime Foundation in 2017 for his ‘immense contribution to the maritime cause’, Iain is currently Editor of the global naval news magazine ‘Warships IFR’. Iain hosts its podcast in addition to guesting on others - including an episode on the sinking of the Belgrano for Dan Snow’s History Hit podcast - and more than once on the Secrets and Spies Podcast and WW2TV on YouTube.
Iain is represented by Peters Fraser + Dunlop, one of the longest-established literary and talent agencies in London.
Martin’s Eyes will be published by Chiselbury on 10 April 2026 and is available for pre-order now
