Thomas Eugene Gifford was a best-selling American author, known for his thriller novels that have gained international fame. Born in Dubuque, Iowa, he moved to Minnesota after graduating from Harvard. Gifford worked as a traveling textbook salesman for eight years before trying his hand at writing. His first attempt was the 1974 published novel "Benchwarmer Bob," a biography of Bob Lurtsema, a Minnesota Vikings defensive layer. However, it was his 1975 novel "The Wind Chill Factor," which introduced the character John Cooper, that brought him to the limelight. Gifford would revisit the character Cooper in the 1994 published "First Sacrifice."
Gifford's novels have won several awards over the years. His novel "The Wind Chill Factor" won the Putnam Prize for the best first novel. "The Glendower Legacy" and "The Cavanagh Quest" made the shortlist for the Edgar Award. His novels often featured international conspiracies and criminal organizations, as seen in "The Assassini," a Vatican-based thriller. Similar to many novels following Dan Brown’s international bestseller the “Da Vinci Code,” the novel posits that the Catholic Church is a criminal organization involved in several far-reaching international conspiracies.
Apart from writing under his real name, Gifford also published under the names Dana Clarins and Thomas Maxwell. He was married twice and had two children from his first marriage. Gifford spent his final years in Dubuque, Iowa, where he renovated his childhood home and wrote a weekly column for the Telegraph Herald entitled "Jazzbo of Old Dubuque." Diagnosed with terminal cancer in February 2000, Gifford passed away on an unseasonably warm Halloween, just as the ghosts and goblins started their tricks. Throughout his life, Gifford lived by his favorite credo, "we're not here for a long time; we're here for a good time."