Welcome to the Creator of Mikko Kivinen

Michael J Ingram is a British author based in Loughborough, UK, where he lives with his wife and twin daughters.

After university, he spent seven years in the British Army, serving in Germany, Bosnia, Croatia, and Northern Ireland. That experience—combined with a long-standing fascination with military history—shapes his fiction at every level, from tactical detail to the way soldiers speak, think, and cope under pressure.

While serving in Germany, Michael became absorbed in the memoirs of German veterans of the Eastern Front: how they rationalised the devastation they helped unleash, and how many sensed the vengeance they believed was inevitable. That moral unease—caught between duty, survival, and consequence—runs through all of his work.

A voracious reader from childhood, he grew up on Enid Blyton and C.S. Lewis before moving on to Wilbur Smith and James Herbert. His single biggest influence, however, is Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series: fast-moving, character-led historical adventure rooted in hard reality rather than nostalgia.

He began writing seriously during lockdown and has since had three short stories published by Scout Media.

His ongoing World War Two series, The Adventures of Mikko Kivinen, is best described as Sharpe for the Second World War, seen through lesser-known theatres and morally complex alliances. Mikko Kivinen—a Finnish soldier inspired by the extraordinary life of Lauri Törni—fights first against the Soviets in the Winter War, then alongside the Germans, and ultimately for the Americans. Like Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe, Mikko is a professional survivor: pragmatic, resourceful, and shaped as much by luck as by skill.

The tone is a more mature, hard-edged take on classic Boy’s Own adventure—Wilbur Smith’s momentum, Cornwell’s historical precision, and the psychological grit of modern military fiction. Combat is visceral, camaraderie is earned, and heroism is never clean. Many of the character interactions and leadership dynamics are drawn directly from Michael’s own military experience, giving the novels an authenticity that goes beyond surface detail.

The Adventures of Mikko Kivinen will appeal to readers who enjoy Bernard Cornwell, Sven Hassel without the caricature, and World War Two fiction that values accuracy, tension, and character over myth-making.