The mystery man threw off his disguise and started to run. Furious stewards gave chase. The crowd roared. A legend was born. Soon the world would know him as “the ghost runner,” John Tarrant, the extraordinary man whom nobody could stop. As a hapless teenage boxer in the 1950s, he’d been paid a small sum in expenses. When he wanted to run, he was banned for life. His amateur status had been compromised. Forever. Now he was fighting back, gate-crashing races all over Britain. No number on his shirt. No friends in high places. Soon he would be a record-breaker, one of the greatest long-distance runners the world had ever seen.
David Hopkins is a fantasy novelist with an interest in Shakespeare, medieval history, fairy tales, and myth. He is the author of The Dryad’s Crown, a story set in the vast world of Efre Ousel. BookLife described The Dryad's Crown as "a welcome, inventive, humane fantasy, set at the scale of a single fascinating life."
David has been a regular contributor to D Magazine, Smart Pop Books, and Fanboy Radio. He has written op-eds for the Dallas Morning News and Chicago Tribune, comic books and graphic novels in a variety of genres, and even a few D&D adventures.
David is married to artist and designer, April Hopkins. He has two daughters, Kennedy and Greta, and a dog named Moose.
A somewhat wordy biography of a fascinating but ultimately unlikable character. John Tarrant was banned from competing as an amateur distance runner for the crime of accepting a few pounds here and there during a short and undistinguished boxing career. He began running obsessively and eventually held some distance records, but never quite managed the level of success he was chasing. Sad at times, not often enough funny; a stark record of a man and an unfair era of "amateur" athletics.