Murdo Morrison was born in Glasgow, Scotland and spent his early years in a Scotstoun tenement similar to the one inhabited by the McIntyre family in Roses of Winter. The author's family has many links to shipyards, shipbuilding and the Merchant Navy. The adventures of Donald McIntyre are based to some extent on the real-life wartime service of his father, Donald Morrison. Murdo attended Allan Glen's School and the University of Glasgow and completed his college degrees in Geography at Central Connecticut State College and Clark University. He retired recently after two decades of state service in the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to work full-time as a writer.