About the Author

Aaron Aalborg is a nom de plume, as if you had not guessed. It seemed like a good way to distance oneself from any religious fanatics, who may take this work of fiction too seriously. At the same time, it heads any alphabetical list. Browsing in bookshops led to the disturbing conclusion that leading the alphabet is a problem. It confines the author to the high shelf, above the eye level of most readers. Unfortunately, by the time of this discovery, the author had become attached to Aaron Aalborg, as he discovered that the estimable Aaron had all of the virtues that he lacked and none of his many vices. The hint of Scandinavian origins and a biblical, possibly Jewish name is so more exotic than the boring real name he inherited.

The author was born on one of the most important borders in the World, between Lancashire and Yorkshire in England. Since the Wars of the Roses in the 15^th Century, the two great counties of Northern England have been rivals. Today, the main remnants of these martial struggles are fought on the cricket field or more in earnest in brutal games of rugby league. At age five, the author’s beloved grandfather introduced him to cricket. The game then could last for several days of interminable boredom. This firmly set a lifelong detestation of the game and all its rituals.

One grandmother had a Scots background and was married to a Yorkshire man. The other was Irish and unhappily married to a Lancashire man. In other words, the author, like most Brits, is a mutt.

He went to a Catholic primary school, run by German nuns, whom he hated. Today he likes to think that some of them were Nazi men fleeing retribution. Some had moustaches and they certainly behaved with great brutality. Did these misanthropic penguins have their SS tattoos secreted beneath their flapping black habits? They hated boys, so it was a transitive relationship. He was expelled for cumulative rebellious behavior in the last term of school.

He went on to attend a Catholic grammar school. There he was destined for a life as a celibate monk. At 13, he had the reverse of a Damascene conversion, after a confession to a priest. The priest told that he did not believe in God himself and found it no obstacle to his calling. Thereafter, the author led a splendidly dissolute and disreputable life through his later years at school and university. He was ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’.

During his higher education, he changed direction again and decided that worldly success might be more fun than being a poor and inebriated, socialist rebel. He joined the Royal Marines Reserve to work off his innate aggression and over active hormones. Fortunately, he never had the chance to slaughter poor foreigners. He still feels that passing the green-beret commando course forged the self confidence that he previously lacked.

Though his first love was history, he invested his time in a business education and has degrees in various business subjects. There followed a long business and commercial career in the UK, Asia and the USA. This included marketing and then general management. He climbed the greasy pole to become a partner in a Chicago based, global consulting firm. There he later ran an Asian region and was fascinated by Asian cultures and religions. In London, he led a department in a UK boutique investment bank. He ended his career as President and CEO of a headhunting firm, based in New York, with over 70 global offices. The firm specialized in poaching senior executives for some of the World’s largest businesses and for government organizations. He was fortunate enough to meet many leaders, some he respected. Many were self aggrandizing and manipulative monsters.

During this time, he travelled the world, lived in interesting places in Asia, the US and Europe and enjoyed life tremendously, on moderately lavish expense accounts. In parallel, he was Chairman of the Strategic Planning Society for a while, a non executive director of various organizations related to business standards and education and a visiting professor at a UK business school for 13 years. He is a Freeman of the City of London and was a member of a City of London livery company.

Latterly, he became a Theravada Buddhist. He went from bad Catholic to bad Buddhist with the help of his three best friends, Jack Daniels, Johnnie Walker and Glen Morangie.

He currently lives in Latin America. There, he decided to write the books that seemed to have been appearing in his head for many years.

He has three adult children from an earlier marriage and has been very happily married to a Scot for the last 19 years. Apart from writing, his interests include, in no particular order: 

     ❍ Edible mushrooms, 
     ❍ Nature, 
     ❍ Behavioral and evolutionary psychology, 
     ❍ Neuroscience, 
     ❍ People watching and 
     ❍ Scottish Country Dancing 

He was researching poisonous mushrooms, in order to avoid them, when he got the idea for this story, on reading about La Spara in articles on poisons.