Steven M. Thomas grew up in a working class suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, where he was not an Eagle Scout or member of the boys’ choir. He left home the first time at fifteen, spending the summer hitchhiking across the country, working at odd jobs and writing a journal. He has lived in Florida, the Bahamas, and London as well as St. Louis and Southern California. Thomas was educated —eventually—at Antioch University, the University of Missouri, St. Louis, and the University of California, Irvine (MFA, 1999). He has won dozens of awards and prizes as a poet, essayist, fiction writer and journalist.

Before jumping at the chance to become a full-time novelist when he got a multi-book contract with Random House in 2006, Thomas worked at different times as a magazine editor, journalist and college lecturer. He has also been a short order cook and an aluminum siding salesman.

Author of Criminal Paradise and Criminal Karma, Thomas is now at work on the third novel in his literary crime fiction series featuring burglar and stickup man Robert Rivers. He lives with his wife and daughter in Orange County, California.