Forced to leave school in Tasmania aged 15 because of his father's death, Michael Winston Tatlow worked trapping rabbits and snaring possums for their skins, then crewed a boat fishing for shark in the Southern Ocean.
The teenage state surf swimming champion, performing alone, saved five people from drowning.
After representing Tasmania in Sydney, Mike became a feature writer and book reviewer for Sydney's Sunday Telegraph; then the paper's foreign correspondent in seven countries. Back in Sydney he was Sunday Telegraph News Editor and Acting Editor . He was Chief-of-Staff of the Daily Telegraph before becoming Pictorial Editor.
After returning to Tasmania and as strategist for a top political party, then ABC Television's senior journalist, Michael began writing books. Pike's Pyramid was his first of a series of five crime thrillers. Four of them are written but have not yet been published. Six of his other books have been published. He has a son and daughter and six grandchildren.