James Riordan learned to speak Russian during National Service training in the Royal Air Force in 1955—57. In 1960, he graduated in Russian Studies at the University of Birmingham, before qualifying as a teacher at the London Institute of Education.

In 1963, Riordan studied at the Communist higher party school in Moscow; he was an avowed Communist, and was one of the few English students at the school. The foreign community there included English defectors Kim Philby and Guy Burgess, formerly of the Cambridge Spy ring.

Non-fiction

• Sport in Soviet Society (1977)
• Sport under Communism (1981)
• Sport in European Cultures (2002)

Children's novels

• Sweet Clarinet
• The Prisoner
• When the Guns Fell Silent
• Mistress of the Copper Mountain
• War Song
• The Match of Death
• The Gift
• The Sniper
• An Illustrated treasury of Fairy and Folk Tales
• Rebel Cargo
• The Woman in the Moon and Other Tales of Forgotten Heroines 1985 Dial ISBN 0-8037-0194-2

As editor

• Football Stories (2004)

Riordan's first novel Sweet Clarinet won the NASEN Award, and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Book Award. The Match of Death won the South Lanarkshire Book Award. The Gift was also shorted for the NASEN Award.