Peter Cleary was born in South Africa and educated in Rhodesia. His further education was at Rhodes University where he obtained an honours degree in English Literature.
His fondest memories of school and university were on the rugby field, not the classroom.
He worked as a newspaper reporter and high school teacher before joining the motor industry, at first Ford, and later Mercedes-Benz where he became Management Board Member for Marketing at the age of forty. The experiences at Ford included overseas postings to Detroit, Melbourne and London, mainly in the fields of marketing and product planning.
In 1995 he started his own motor dealership, the first of three. The dealerships won numerous awards for excellence, including, at different times, the coveted Dealer of the Year award for all of the brands they represented. The Mercedes-Benz dealerships were sold in 2007 and the Hyundai, Renault and Honda dealership in 2023.
He wrote his first book in 2009, an autobiography, and had it published through Trafford. Subsequently he has self-published many novels, the stories mainly set in Southern Africa, and in a variety of genres including historical fiction and thrillers.
He lives with his wife Cathy in the small northern KwaZulu-Natal coastal town of Mtunzini. The Indian Ocean is a visible and audible presence in their home, a home regularly vacated as they tour Southern Africa, often in search of new stories.