He doesnt run. My bard is lvl 68, so I just invized to where he spawns, then cast slow on him (requiem of time) and chanted him down. None of the other mobs aggro if you're at his spawn spot, but they do if you move from there even a little bit. It took me about 10 kills to get the book.
Just an FYI. No one in my group knew what this was, so I looted on our first kill of this dude and looked up the quest. Sounded cool, so I delivered to Gunthak. I read that the NPC didnt want you talking, so I just did a turn-in. Got this message. "Kardin Nillic stares at you blankly."
If you aint a bard, don't bother with the turnin.. just let it rot or destroy it.
Was camping another mob in the white tavern by the docks, this dropped twice in one and 1/2 hour. We may have killed about a dozen of these guys, seems pretty common to me.