From an early age he was interested in spy novels carrying around John Buchan's Greenmantle and Ruyard Kipling's Kim.

During his national service, he was commissioned in the Royal Hampshire Regiment in January 1950 and served as a subaltern in the King's African Rifles, in the same battalion as Lance-Corporal Idi Amin.

Hopkirk travelled widely over many years in the regions where his six books are set – Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and eastern Turkey.

At the height of the economic oil crises in 1974, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) personnel hijacked his plane, a KLM jet bound for Amsterdam.

In 1999, he was awarded the Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal for his writing and travels by the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.