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Clinton Smith, born in Sydney, Australia, began trying to write as a schoolboy. After a lurch into the media as a radio announcer, he worked for years in a TV studio, writing short stories in off-hours, some of which he sold. When he became an advertising copywriter working on world brands, the demands of the job, plus marriage and children, made scribbling fiction difficult. He finished several book-length manuscripts in following years but none sold, although some of his stories won literary contests.

During his long advertising career, in the process of shooting his commercials, he survived aerobatics with Air Force instructors, chopper journeys with the Navy and tank rides over obstacle courses with the Army. He encountered big-game at Sabi Sabi, chased storms in an antique ketch around the Barrier Islands, supervised cars towing autogyros, women dangling out of truck doors over cliffs and hang-gliders flying off New Zealand mountains. His shoots commandeered the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, the Arc de Triomphe, stopped traffic in Times Square and disrupted the Monte Carlo Rally. People as diverse as Edward de Bono and Ronnie Barker fronted his campaigns.

His commercials have won thirty local and international awards and he’s known for the inventive and humorous King Gee workwear commercials he wrote for twenty years and the slogan: ‘If they were any tougher, they’d rust.’ He became a partner in his own agency then retired in his fifties to concentrate on fiction. Now that he can afford to write full-time, his problem is living long enough to do it.

Smith’s first two books have been optioned for film. He is editing the fourth and has written the screenplay of the first. He has been divorced for almost forty years, lives alone and believes that possessions waste time. His furniture comes from garage sales, he’s had the same car for twenty-two years, the same computer for twelve. He rides a bike, lifts weights and may soon sell his violin.