David Wadsworth Ball (born September 12, 1949) is an American author whose novels include Empires of Sand (1999), China Run (2002) and Ironfire (2004).

His father Jack served in World War II as a pilot, first in the Royal Air Force and then the US Navy.

He installed telecommunications equipment in Cameroun, renovated Victorian houses in Denver and pumped gasoline in the Grand Tetons.

In the course of researching the book, Ball traveled four times to the Sahara, including once on a 50cc motorcycle across the Hoggar, a remote mountainous region of the Algerian desert, where he stayed with the Tuareg.

[6] Dubbed "a wonderfully orchestrated novel of suspense",[10] China Run was translated into Latvian, Hungarian, German, Czech and French and was produced as an audio-book.

More broadly the book details life in the 16th century Mediterranean, from the slave markets of Algiers to the noble houses of France, from the Topkapi seraglio in Istanbul to the great sea battles between galleys.

It was translated into Turkish, Spanish, Serbian, Polish, Greek, German, and French, and released in paperback, audio, and e-book editions.

[6] He recently completed a short story that will be included in a cross-genre anthology entitled Rogues to be published by Bantam Spectra in 2014.

Ball has lived, worked, and conducted research in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas.