Laurence was born in Dublin. He studied business, then IT at Oxford University. After going to England he paid for his own courses and began rising at 4AM so he could study and work at the same time. One early job was as a kitchen porter near the Bank of England cleaning the plates of the well connected. He stayed in squats in London and struggled for years. Laurence was first published by a school newspaper when he was ten, for a short story about aliens getting lost. Thirty-five years later, he attended a authonomy workshop and not long after was offered a publishing contract for three books. The first of which, The Istanbul Puzzle, won the Outstanding Novel award at the Southern California writer's conference in 2007.