AustLit

Paul Thomas moved to New Zealand as an infant in 1954 and grew up in Timaru, Christchurch and Auckland, completing his education at the University of Auckland. In the 1980s he worked as a journalist, editor and a public relations executive in Auckland and Sydney. As a freelance writer he contributed to many Australian and New Zealand magazines and newspapers. He also co-authored several sports books. Thomas has used Auckland and Sydney as the main settings of his novels, attracting praise from critics in both countries. He became New Zealand's best-selling local thriller writer with Old School Tie (1994), drawing praise for his black humour and his descriptions of New Zealand settings. His next novel, Inside Dope(1995), won the inaugural Ned Kelly Award for Australian crime fiction. He followed this up with Guerilla Season (1996), a novel set in Auckland, detailing the political violence of the fictional Aotearoa People's Army. He received another Ned Kelly Award nomination in 2000 for Final Cut (1999) and he consolidated his reputation for compellingly witty tales of sex and violence with The Empty Bed (2002).