Gordon Thomas (author)

Gordon Thomas (born 1933) is a Welsh author who has written fifty-three books. The total sales of his works exceed 45 million copies. Thomas divides his time between his homes in Ireland and England, with his wife, an interior designer. His five children work in various parts of the entertainment industry.

Biography

Thomas was born in Wales, in a cemetery keeper’s cottage where his grandmother lived. He had his first story published at nine years old in a Boy's Own Paper competition. With his father in the RAF, he traveled widely and was educated at the Cairo High School, the Maritz Brothers in Port Elizabeth and, finally, at Bedford Modern.

His first book, completed at the age of seventeen, is the story of a British spy in Russia during World War II, titled Descent Into Danger. He refused the offer of a job at a university in order to accompany a traveling fair for a year: he used those experiences for his novel Bed of Nails. Since then his books have been published worldwide. He has been a foreign correspondent beginning with the Suez Crisis and ending with the first Gulf War. He was a BBC writer/producer for three flagship BBC programmes: Man Alive, Tomorrow's World and Horizon. He is a regular contributor to Facta, the respected monthly Japanese news magazine, and he lectures widely on the secret world of intelligence. He also provides expert analysis on intelligence for US and European television and radio programs.^[1]

His book Gideon's Spies: Mossad's Secret Warriors became a major documentary for Channel Four that he wrote and narrated: The Spy Machine. It followed three years of research during which he was given unprecedented access to Mossad’s main personnel. The documentary was co-produced by Open Media and Israfilm.^[2]

Gideon's Spies: Mossad's Secret Warriors has so far been published in 16 languages. A source for this book is Ari Ben-Menashe, a self-described former Mossad agent. According to Charles Foster in Contemporary Review: "Writers who know their place are few and far between: fortunately Mr Thomas is one of them. By keeping to his place as a tremendous storyteller without a preacher's pretensions, he has put his book amongst the important chronicles of the state of Israel." [2]

Major Awards

• An International Television Award from the Festival de Télévision de Monte-Carlo.
• Two Mark Twain Society Awards for Reporting Excellence
• Shipwreck won him the Edgar Allan Poe Award.

Bibliography

• Thomas, Gordon; Max Morgan-Witts (1969). The Day their World Ended (May 8, 1902, eruption of Mount Pelée). Stein and Day. 
• Thomas, Gordon; Max Morgan-Witts (1977). Enola Gay. 
• Thomas, Gordon (1989). Journey Into Madness: The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse. Bantam. ISBN 0-553-05357-4. 
• Thomas, Gordon; Martin Dillon. Assassination of Robert Maxwell. 
• Thomas, Gordon (1999). Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-25284-6. 
• Thomas, Gordon (2001). Seeds of Fire: China and the Story Behind the Attack on America. Dandelion Books. ISBN 1-893302-54-7. 
• Dillon, Martin; Gordon Thomas (November 2003). Robert Maxwell: Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1295-3. 
• Thomas, Gordon (2009). Secret Wars: One Hundred Years of British Intelligence Inside MI5 and MI6. Thomas Dunne Books. pp. 448. ISBN 978-0312379988. 

Book clubs

Gordon's works have appeared in:

• The Book of the Month Club
• The Literary Guild Book
• The Readers Digest Book Club

Film Translations

• Voyage of the Damned won five Academy Award nominations
• Enola Gay won the Emmy Awards Foreign Critics Prize
• Experiences won the Experiences won the Juries and Critics prize at the Monte Carlo Film Festival

See also

• Robert Maxwell
• The Spy Machine

References

1. ^ [1], accessed 5th February 2009
2. ^ Belfast News Letter, May 14, 1998

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Name	Thomas, Gordon
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Date of birth	1933
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