Peter Watt's life experiences have included time as a soldier, articled clerk, prawn trawler deckhand, builder's labourer, pipe layer, pig shooter, real estate salesman, private investigator, police sergeant and police adviser in Papua New Guinea. He has lived and worked with Aboriginal people, Pacific Islander people, Vietnamese and Papuans and he speaks, reads and writes Vietnamese and Pidgin. Good friends, fine food, fishing and the vast open spaces of outback Queensland are his main interests in life.