Frank Riley

My life has been one adventure after another. As a fifteen-year-old kid I worked on river boats in the River Mersey, Liverpool. At sixteen, I went into the Merchant Navy and served on nine ships.

When I was eighteen I began hitch-hiking through Scandinavia and mainland Europe. At twenty I worked on schooners in the Mediterranean, then hitch-hiked twice through Europe and the Middle East.

I ran out of money on the first attempt to get to Australia in Karachi and ended up getting a job as a third cook on a Norwegian freighter which took me to India, Ethiopia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the USA and Antwerp in Belgium.

The second attempt to get to Australia (to see my brother) I ran out of money in Teheran in Iran and had to do a runner out of that country with the financial assistance of my brother. For further details of this and indeed all of my adventures, check out 'The Life of Riley' at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004J4W08I for the Kindle edition; and in paperback: https://www.createspace.com/3556150

I'm a brown belt in judo, have done some boxing and karate.

I spent twenty-two years as a professional ballroom and Latin American dancer and became a judge in both American style and international.

I began writing over forty-five years ago and have written numerous novels and movie scripts and have teamed up with Amazon.com to sell my books. I currently have Ten titles for sale: five novels, 'Bell's Lot' a detective drama set in Sydney, 'The last Dance', a romance drama set in the cauldron of the dance world, 'The Dying Sea', about Eco-terrorism gone wrong, ‘Stringer's War’, about the conflicts of a young American boy who was brought up in Japan, but because of war he and his family are forced to move back home. The subsequent trials and travails of the boy/man take up the main part of the story, and my latest novel, published this week, is ‘Death of a Queen’, a drama at sea when a luxury cruise ship is overtaken by terrorists. My next title is 'The Life of Riley’, a tongue-in-cheek autobiography.

‘Maddie and the Chipmunk’ is my first children’s book to be published.

'The Reluctant Tourist' series are comical travelogues; a continuation of my travels with my wife, Sophie. Sophie is required to go to academic conferences each year in a different country each time and I am 'forced' to go with her as her comic relief, ‘The Reluctant Tourist - Part Two’ is the second book in the travel series. ‘The Reluctant Tourist- Part Three’ has now been added, with a fourth in the series soon to be published.

Some of our trips were just for pleasure, but the majority were working trips for Sophie. We have travelled to many countries in pursuit of her requirements to produce papers of her involvement with certain environment groups and animal law groups. Thus far, we have visited China, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, England, Scotland, Ireland (North and South), Finland, Russia, Sweden Denmark, Germany, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, The Philippines, South Africa and later this year, Singapore and next year, France. So, of course, there will be another ‘Reluctant Tourist’ book in the offing.

I wrote and directed a pilot for a children's television series, called 'The Magician'. It was a vehicle for showing the difficulties children have in growing up. The pilot dealt with bullying. Sadly, the television station for which I wrote and directed my work, went belly up whilst we were in post production.

My motivation for writing is from life itself. I draw on my past, but I rely heavily on my observations of people and their motivations. I don't subscribe to the notion that people really change their character during their life - the so-called 'arc' in movie parlance - and it is that belief in the basic flaw of humans that gives me much fodder for my works.