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Ross Thomas (1926–1995)

Author of Briarpatch

50+ Works 3,967 Members 74 Reviews 25 Favorited

About the Author

Writer Ross Thomas was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on February 19, 1926. During World War II, he served in the Philippines. Before becoming a writer in 1965, he worked as a pulic relations specialist and a reporter. He has written over twenty novels, including The Cold War Swap, which won the show more 1967 Edgar Award for best first novel, and Briarpatch, which won the 1985 Edgar Award for best novel. He also wrote a series of novels under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck. Besides writing novels, he worked on the following three screenplays: St. Ives, which was based on a character he created, Hammett, and Bad Company. He died in Santa Monica, California on December 18, 1995. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Disambiguation Notice:

Oliver Bleeck was a pen name of Ross Thomas. Ross Thomas and Thomas Ross are two different names ( different surnames) please do not combine these.

Series

Works by Ross Thomas

Briarpatch (1984) 391 copies
Chinaman's Chance (1978) 337 copies
Out on the Rim (1987) 266 copies
The Cold War Swap (1966) 240 copies
The Fourth Durango (1989) 234 copies
Twilight at Mac's Place (1990) 209 copies
Cast a Yellow Shadow (1967) 207 copies
Voodoo Ltd (1993) 204 copies
The Eighth Dwarf (1979) 159 copies
Missionary Stew (1983) 158 copies
Ah, Treachery! (1994) 156 copies
The Backup Men (1971) 117 copies
The Singapore Wink (1969) 113 copies
The Money Harvest (1975) 104 copies
If You Can't Be Good (1973) 103 copies
The Seersucker Whipsaw (1967) 98 copies
Yellow-Dog Contract (1977) 92 copies
The Porkchoppers (1972) 91 copies
The Mordida Man (1981) 89 copies
The Brass Go-Between (1969) 86 copies
The Procane Chronicle (1971) 77 copies
Protocol for a Kidnapping (1971) 75 copies
The Highbinders (1974) 66 copies
No Questions Asked (1976) 64 copies
Teufels Küche (2010) 3 copies
Bad Company [1995 film] (1995) — Writer — 3 copies
Spies, Thumbsuckers, Etc. (1989) 2 copies
Chien de métier (1970) 1 copy
Any 1 copy
La madriguera (1984) 1 copy
Maailman laidalla (1995) 1 copy

Associated Works

D.C. Noir 2: The Classics (2008) — Contributor — 63 copies
Blood In, Blood Out [1993 film] (1993) — Original story — 28 copies
The Cutting Edge: Going for the Gold [2006 film] (2006) — Actor, some editions — 20 copies

Tagged

$E11 (22) 1 (20) 1st (25) adventure (20) American (21) basement (23) BL (24) Box 32 (20) caper (30) challenge (24) crime (109) crime fiction (152) detective (19) espionage (90) fiction (336) hardboiled (22) humor (32) Kindle (24) MY (20) mystery (398) mystery/suspense (30) mysterysf (27) nancy-pearl-s-book-lust (24) novel (23) own (29) paperback (61) political thriller (38) politics (30) read (70) readtoread (28) Ross Thomas (31) series (41) spy (33) suspense (37) thriller (185) to-read (96) toread2 (40) TTT (20) unread (20) Washington DC (45)

Common Knowledge

Canonical name
Thomas, Ross
Other names
Bleeck, Oliver (pseudonym)
Birthdate
1926-02-16
Date of death
1995-12-18
Gender
male
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
Place of death
Santa Monica, California, USA
Places of residence
California, USA
Occupations
public relations specialist
political strategist
union spokesman
reporter
soldier
Awards and honors
Gumshoe Award (Lifetime Achievement, 2002)
Disambiguation notice
Oliver Bleeck was a pen name of Ross Thomas.

Ross Thomas and Thomas Ross are two different names ( different surnames) please do not combine these.

Members

Reviews

The only one of the series I've read, but I thought it was good. Apparently the main character is a "professional go-between" which I've never heard of before, but the plot was good and the characters well-developed. Only comes in at a couple of hundred pages, pretty typical for an early 1970's thriller. I will read more if I happen to run across them.
 
Flagged
benfulton | 1 other review | May 11, 2024 |
I got this book because i totally loved the TV show.   I don't normally watch TV shows before i read the book but i got totally hooked on it because it was just so frigging awesome.

But having had a brief start at reading this book, it just isn't as good as the TV show.   Pick is a guy in the book whereas in the TV show it's Rosario Dawson and i just can't get my head around Pick being a man.

So i've decided to put this away for quite a few years when i hopefully may have forgotten all about the TV show and then i'll come back and give it a read.   Probably not though.   Me thinks it's just one of those books that will get relegated to "The Boneyard" forever.… (more)
 
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5t4n5 | 15 other reviews | Aug 9, 2023 |
Have to confess that I can never follow complicated con games (I still haven't figured out what happened in Oceans 11, and I've watched it several times), but I enjoyed the pace and the characters in this one, not to mention the retro-LA setting.
 
Flagged
JudyGibson | 7 other reviews | Jan 26, 2023 |
This is my second book by Ross Thomas. I read "The Fools in Town are on Our Side " a few week before this, and enjoyed it enough to seek more. Both had interesting stories, humorous dialogs, lots of twists and turns, and people having bad days in general.

I will most likely read more by this author.
 
Flagged
MartyFried | 7 other reviews | Oct 9, 2022 |

Lists

Awards

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Statistics

Works
50
Also by
4
Members
3,967
Popularity
#6,364
Rating
3.9
Reviews
74
ISBNs
398
Languages
11
Favorited
25

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