Peter Corris was born in country Victoria and educated at Melbourne High School and the University of Melbourne. After taking a Master¹s degree at Monash University and a PhD (both in history) at the ANU, he worked as an academic at several universities before turning to journalism. He was Literary Editor of The National Times from 1980-1 and has been a professional writer for the past 20 years. He is best known for his 26 books about Sydney private detective Cliff Hardy. He has also published spy novels, historical novels, a collection of stories about golf as well as editing anthologies about golf and boxing and co-writing autobiographies, notably of the late Professor Fred Hollows. He is married to writer Jean Bedford; they live on the Illawarra coast in NSW Wales and have three daughters.

His interests are reading and writing, golf, weight training and films.