Biography ii ross thomas author
Ross Thomas
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Ross Thomas Books In Order
Publication Order of Arthur Case Wu Books
| Chinaman's Chance | (1978) |
| Out on the Rim | (1987) |
| Voodoo, Ltd. | (1992) |
Publication Order of Mac McCorkle Books
| The Cold War Swap | (1966) |
| Cast a Yellow Shadow | (1967) |
| The Backup Men | (1971) |
| Twilight at Mac's Place | (1990) |
Publication Order of Philip St. Ives Books
as Oliver Bleeck| The Brass Go-Between | (1969) |
| The Procane Chronicle / The Thief Who Painted Sunlight | (1971) |
| Protocol for a Kidnapping | (1971) |
| The Highbinders | (1973) |
| No Questions Asked | (1976) |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| The Seersucker Whipsaw | (1967) |
| The Singapore Wink | (1969) |
| The Fools in Town Are On Our Side | (1970) |
| The Porkchoppers | (1972) |
| If You Can't Be Good | (1973) |
| Yellow-Dog Contract | (1976) |
| The Eighth Dwarf | (1979) |
| The Mordida Man | (1981) |
| Missionary Stew | (1983) |
| Briarpatch | (1984) |
| The Fourth Durango | (1989) |
| The Money Harvest | (1993) |
| Ah, Treachery! | (1994) |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Warriors for the Poor: The Story of VISTA, Volunteers In Service to America | (1969) |
| Spies, Thumbsuckers, Etc. | (1989) |
Ross Thomas is an American author of crime fiction and mystery and thriller novels. He was born in Oklahoma City in the U.S. on February 19, 1926. He has commonly used the pen name Oliver Bleeck to write several novels. He is known for writing intelligent and gripping thrillers that go on to expose mechanisms of professional politics.
Ross Thomas served in the Philippines serving in the infantry when the second world war was going on. He had a great many professions before he became a writer, working as a foreign correspondent reporter, a public relations specialist, a union spokesman, as well as a political strategist in Germany, the United States, and Nigeria.
Ross Thomas began writing novels in 1965.
Remembering Ross Thomas
Culture
He made crime fiction a genre of moral consolation in twenty-five award-winning books
By Tony Hiss
Ross Thomas, who died last winter at the age of sixty-nine, has often been compared to another writer of hard-boiled fiction—Raymond Chandler. Both were spellbinding storytellers; no matter how fast one galloped through their books, one read the last chapter at a crawl, in order to delay its end ("Can't put it down" also means "Try to make it last"). And they had similar turning points, since each first started publishing fiction around the age of forty. Both Thomas and Chandler had more than just high hopes going for them when they began coming up with tales, because they brought with them half a lifetime's worth of triumphs, misfortunes, magical transformations, and mortifying mistakes or raw material, as Somerset Maugham used to call what leads to the slow accumulation of understanding.
Chandler, a generation older than Thomas, fought with the Canadian Corps and later served in the Royal Air Force during the First World War. He became a banker for a while and then a successful oil-company executive. Thomas began his adult life as a U.S. infantryman in the Philippines during the Second World War, and after that was very busy jumping into and out of several promising careers. He was a reporter (in Cajun country, in Bonn, and in Washington) and a public-relations man (first for the National Farmers Union and later for VISTA), and he made something of a name for himself as a political mastermind. He was the chief strategist for two aging union presidents seeking re-election, guided a tribal chief who was trying to become Nigeria's first postcolonial Prime Minister, and in 1956 handled two campaigns simultaneously—one for a Republican nominated for the Senate and the other for a Democrat running for governor of Colorado. (Both union presidents were eventually turned out of office; the Nigerian lost big and was thrown in
Ross Thomas (author)
American writer (1926–1995)
"Oliver Bleeck" redirects here. For the footballer, see Oliver Beeck.
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 five novels under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck about professional go-between Philip St. Ives.
Early life
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.
Career
Thomas's debut novel, The Cold War Swap, introducing McCorkle and Padillo, 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).
In addition to his novels, Thomas also wrote an original screenplay for the 1995 movie Bad Company, about a CIA affiliated private spy organization. It was produced by Disney's Touchstone Pictures, scored by Joel and Ethan Coen's regular composer Carter Burwell and starred Ellen Barkin and Laurence Fishburne.
Thomas wrote an unproduced film for producer Robert Evans entitled Jimmy the Rumour. The project is the story of a man born without an identity who works as a thief stealing from other thieves.
The first three novels in the McCorkle-Padillo series are written in the first person, as are a number of others through Yellow Dog Contract. The fourth and final McCorkle-Padillo nove