Photo: supplied
Robert Rattenbury says he grew up on the "wrong side of the tracks".
It was the 1960s and his was a working class, Catholic family in the Hutt Valley suburb of Naenae.
He and his siblings spent time in state care, and he says his life could have taken a very different route.
Rob left school at 17 and join the Police Cadets - beginning a 23-year policing career, in Lower Hutt and Whanganui.
Writing was always a passion, and so when Rob left the force, he began working on his first book - a collection of police-related stories, called So You Want To Be A Cop?
That book led to a regular column in the Whanganui Chronicle which ran for many years.
Another non fiction book followed, on the various New Zealand police services, A Battered Proud Badge.
Now, Rob's turned to fiction, telling the human side of policing in his crime story about a jewellery shop robbery - it's called Heist in the Hutt.
