Name Ross Thomas | Role Writer | |
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Movies Blood In Blood Out, Hammett, Bad Company Awards Edgar Award for Best Novel, Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author, Martin Beck Award Nominations Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay Books Chinaman's Chance, The Cold War Swap, The Fools in Town Are on O, Out on the rim, Cast a Yellow Shadow Similar People Floyd Mutrux, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Joe Gores, Damian Harris, Taylor Hackford | ||
Ross Thomas (February 19, 1926 in Oklahoma City – December 18, 1995 in Santa Monica, California) was an American writer of crime fiction. He is best known for his witty thrillers that expose the mechanisms of professional politics. He also wrote several novels under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck about professional go-between Philip St. Ives.
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Thomas served with the infantry in the Philippines during World War II. He worked as a public relations specialist, correspondent with the Armed Forces Network, union spokesman, and political strategist in the USA, Bonn (Germany), and Nigeria before becoming a writer.
His debut novel, The Cold War Swap, was written in only six weeks and won a 1967 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Briarpatch earned the 1985 Edgar for Best Novel. In 2002 he was honored with the inaugural Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award, one of only two authors to earn the award posthumously (the other was 87th Precinct author Ed McBain in 2006).
He died of lung cancer in Santa Monica, California two months before his 70th birthday.
Non-Fiction
Recurring characters
Aside from Philip St. Ives, the following characters appear in more than one novel: