GENE GROSSMAN was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in the North side neighborhood of Albany Park, attending Hibbard Elementary and Von Steuben High School. He pursued majors in psychology, chemistry and mathematics at Wright Junior College, Roosevelt University and Illinois Institute of Technology - all the while working his way through high school and college by playing piano in clubs on Chicago's then-famous "Rush Street."

      After moving to Southern California, he worked his way through law school playing piano, and appeared as a musician in seven major motion pictures. While slowly building his law practice, Gene purchased a truckload of movie equipment (a 5-ton grip & light package) that he rented out to flim production companies.

      Always having been interested in boating, getting divorced prompted him to move onto a 45-foot Chris Craft motor yacht in Marina del Rey California, instead of into an apartment. Years later, while serving as navigator on a yacht delivery from the U.S. to Tortola, Gene wrote his first book, Celestial Navigation for Dummies (some time before the popular series of 'Dummies' books was created). He used his own production equipment to shoot a video on the subject Celestial Navigation - Sextant Use and the Sun Noon Shot and at the same time unintentionally started the nautical video industry. Over the next few years he  followed that first title up with more than 30 other educational video titles  (now in DVD format) now all featured on BoatingDVDs.com, one of 93 different  domains his production  company maintains on the internet, featuring many categories of educational programs (MagicLampDVDs.com).

     Having moved on from doing scripts for his video productions, Gene turned to writing fiction, and now spends most of his time in the marina on his boat, where he created the 13-book series of Peter Sharp Legal Mysteries, all now available on Amazon through PeaterSharpBooks.com.

      In addition to the 13 Peter Sharp novels, Gene compiled a group of fiction and non-fiction titles that he has either written or edited for others, plus some classic stories: the publishing company he formed (MagicLampPress.com) now has more than 50 books in print.