C. F. Barrington is a British author who writes in the thriller genre. He is best known for the Pantheon series, which began with The Wolf Mile (2021), and for his stand-alone novel When We Were Killers (2025), Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month. His work combines elements of history and suspense with modern settings and psychological intrigue.
C. F. Barrington grew up in Hertfordshire and later studied at Oxford University. After graduating, he worked for several organisations, including the RSPB, Oxford University and the National Trust. His role as Head of Communications at Edinburgh Zoo was a turning point. "After a third year of fielding endless media enquiries about the possible birth of a baby panda," he recalls, "I finally retreated to a quiet desk by the sea and discovered the inspiration for the Pantheon saga."
Barrington began writing seriously as a teenager. "My writing needed a few more years to mature," he later admitted. He wrote another thriller, Crestfallen, in his early thirties, but did not achieve publication until he returned to writing years later with The Wolf Mile.
The Pantheon series centres on Tyler Maitland and Lana Cameron, ordinary people recruited into a hidden global game. Warriors from ancient civilisations fight under elite sponsors in modern cities such as Edinburgh, Rome, Budapest and Istanbul. The series explores identity, loyalty and power through structured battles and shifting alliances.
Barrington explained that The Wolf Mile was shaped by Edinburgh's unique atmosphere: "The dark, malevolent history of the Old Town and its stunning architecture… set my mind in motion." Later volumes, such as The Blood Isles (2021), expanded the setting to the Outer Hebrides, increasing the scale of conflict and consequence.
His most recent book, When We Were Killers (2025), is a gritty academic thriller set at the University of St Andrews. The novel follows Finn Nethercott, a first-year student drawn into a tight-knit group of history scholars obsessed with ancient Scotland.
Their friendship unravels into ritual, rivalry and violence, fuelled by myth and mind-altering drugs and described by critics as "darkly evocative" and "impossible to put down".
C. F. Barrington now divides his time between the Lake District and Fife, where he enjoys running and walking his dog along the coast.
Photo credit: X @barrington_cf
C. F. Barrington grew up in Hertfordshire and later studied at Oxford University. After graduating, he worked for several organisations, including the RSPB, Oxford University and the National Trust. His role as Head of Communications at Edinburgh Zoo was a turning point. "After a third year of fielding endless media enquiries about the possible birth of a baby panda," he recalls, "I finally retreated to a quiet desk by the sea and discovered the inspiration for the Pantheon saga."
Barrington began writing seriously as a teenager. "My writing needed a few more years to mature," he later admitted. He wrote another thriller, Crestfallen, in his early thirties, but did not achieve publication until he returned to writing years later with The Wolf Mile.
The Pantheon series centres on Tyler Maitland and Lana Cameron, ordinary people recruited into a hidden global game. Warriors from ancient civilisations fight under elite sponsors in modern cities such as Edinburgh, Rome, Budapest and Istanbul. The series explores identity, loyalty and power through structured battles and shifting alliances.
Barrington explained that The Wolf Mile was shaped by Edinburgh's unique atmosphere: "The dark, malevolent history of the Old Town and its stunning architecture… set my mind in motion." Later volumes, such as The Blood Isles (2021), expanded the setting to the Outer Hebrides, increasing the scale of conflict and consequence.
His most recent book, When We Were Killers (2025), is a gritty academic thriller set at the University of St Andrews. The novel follows Finn Nethercott, a first-year student drawn into a tight-knit group of history scholars obsessed with ancient Scotland.
Their friendship unravels into ritual, rivalry and violence, fuelled by myth and mind-altering drugs and described by critics as "darkly evocative" and "impossible to put down".
C. F. Barrington now divides his time between the Lake District and Fife, where he enjoys running and walking his dog along the coast.
Photo credit: X @barrington_cf
Books
Audiobooks
Quotes
“Are you sure that we are awake?
It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream.”
It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream.”
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The moral right of C.F. Barrington to be identified as the author of this work has been
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