My greatest influence was by brother, an international journalist, Frank Devine - not that he pursued writing fiction after his teens.

I became a published poet before I was twenty but my ambition to become a fiction writer went on the back-burner while I brought up a family of 7 children with my wife, Gabrielle.

My reading preferences changed over the years from literary fiction, to science fiction, to thrillers. It was the buzz of reading thrillers that attracted me to the idea of writing them. I also write in other genres.