Les Hinton was born in Bootle, Merseyside, England. He is the son of a wandering British Army sergeant and grew up in Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Germany, Singapore, and Australia.
In Adelaide, Australia, he took his first job as a 15-year-old copy boy with a newspaper owned by a young Rupert Murdoch. As Murdoch’s empire grew, he worked for him as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor, and then as one of his most senior executives, managing newspapers, magazines, and TV stations. Les published a memoir, The Bootle Boy, in 2018, and his debut novel, Dying Days, will be published in November 2025.