About the Author

Michael (Mike) Green arrived in this world with a 'hell of a bang'. He was born during an air raid in May 1944, under the kitchen table in his grandmother's cottage in Sevenoaks, Kent, England.

At age thirteen his mother caught him reading a copy of 'The Playboy' and packed him off to 'Training Ship Mercury' (arguably the toughest school in England at the time) in order that he no longer be a bad influence on his younger brothers.

Mike was the smallest cadet when he arrived at Mercury and the smallest when he left three and a half years later! Unable to make any impression on the sports field, he turned to writing - winning a number of poetry and short story competitions in the process.

At seventeen he joined the British Merchant Navy as a Deck Officer Cadet where he continued to pursue his passion for writing. Two years later he sent his first novel 'Black Velvet' to a London literary agent. Black Velvet told the story of a young Deck Officer Cadet, who (like Mike himself), sailed to East Africa, where he met and fell in love with an African prostitute. Unlike Mike, the hero of Black Velvet married the prostitute and took her back to England (a controversial story line in 1960's England).

The Literary Agent wrote back 'We are all agreed the novel shows great promise, but we find the novel too repetitive in its content. We suggest you treat the novel as a writing exercise, and please send us anything else you write.' Mike was devastated. The novel was twenty four chapters long and had twenty four 'sex scenes' but his hero performed the act in twenty four different locations. What was repetitive about that! (Mike now realises he was suffering from 'lack of research').

Devastated, Mike gave up writing novels and concentrated on poetry.

After three years at sea he 'swallowed the anchor' and entered the computer industry working for DRG in England - at the time one of the largest printing and packaging multinationals.

In 1974 DRG packed him off to New Zealand (probably so that he would no longer be a bad influence on the rest of their UK computer staff) where he ran their New Zealand computer systems. In 1978 he formed his own computer software house and subsequently two international IT recruitment consultancies.

In 1986 he was again stuck by the 'writing bug' and wrote the humours novel 'Big Aggie Sails the Gulf' which relates the story of Blanco White who, like Mike himself, owned a trailer yacht called 'Big Aggie' and suffered many misadventures sailing Auckland's spectacular Hauraki Gulf.

A successful Toastmaster and public speaker at the time, Mike won many speaking competitions including the Toastmaster International Auckland District Humours Speech competition, the New Zealand Impromptu speech competition, the ASB/People in Parks 'Gift of the Gab Competition' and the BNZ Cup for Oratory. As a result he was commissioned by Cobb Horwood Publications to write the 'to do' reference book Successful Speechmaking.

Whilst both books were successful, Mike realised that the book market in New Zealand was so small that he was unlikely to make a reasonable living as a full time author (the average full time writer in New Zealand fails to earn the minimum wage!) and reluctantly decided to concentrate on 'his day job' - the lucrative IT industry.

Mike retired in 2003 - intent on at last writing the long-awaited sequel to 'Big Aggie Sails the Gulf'. But as he was about to travel to the United Kingdom the SARS pandemic occurred and his trip was postponed.

Mike asked himself the question 'what's going to happen if this pandemic gets out of control; how will I protect myself and my family?'

Pondering those questions led to him writing 'The Crucial Gene' which he published as a fundraising venture for LifeLine Auckland (the New Zealand equivalent to The Samaritans).

'The Crucial Gene' was subsequently snapped up by Random House New Zealand who republished the novel under the title Blood Line'. Blood Line was followed by the sequels Blood Bond and Blood Roots. Blood Line and Blood Bond have already been translated and re-published by Verlagsgruppe Luebbe - Germany's largest fiction publisher.

Just as well the German Luftwaffe missed Mike in the 1944 air raid!

Following numerous unsolicited 'Wow, this would make a great film!' comments, Mike is currently pursuing opportunities for both film and television series production. So if you are a Film/Television Producer, or you know a man, who knows a woman, who knows a Producer…. please contact Mike - .

Michael’s latest project has been to write ‘Big Aggie’ Sails Again - the long-awaited sequel to 'Big Aggie’ Sails the Gulf.