Born in Los Angeles in 1952 and raised in the San Fernando Valley, Tom is the son of a minister and missionary, who traveled to Haiti, Dominican Republic and Central American during the 1960s.

Tom began writing at 11 years of age.  The first sentence of fiction he wrote was "Bee Bee was a boy who liked string and bugs." (It sounded good at the time.) He continued to write through high school and college, sending his short stories to magazines.  Like any writer, he dreamed of being published, and, although rejection slips kept finding their way into his mail box, he kept writing.

While attending Moorpark College in Moorpark, California, as a journalism major, he wrote for the school newspaper and became the entertainment editor.  But journalism didn't seem to fit with his passion for entertaining people, so he switched to theater and wrote two one-act plays called Dinner and The Left-Handed Hummingbird.  They were produced in The Forum Theater, one of which he directed, in the other he was an actor, and theater became a parallel passion for him, focusing on acting and directing.  He finished up at Moorpark College and on to UCLA.  

In 1974, he became a private investigator.  By age 25, he was the Executive Director of Nick Harris Detectives in Los Angeles, and in 1983 he opened his own detective agency in Beverly Hills, Probe Investigations, which he still operates from Ventura, California.

In 1981, he co-authored the book How To Protect Your Life and Property: An Everyday Survival Guide with Milo Speriglio. 

In 2003, his screenplay, Open Spaces, was made into an independent feature film, which he had the additional pleasure of directing.  

His play, American Right, premiered in March 2010 at The Elite Theatre Company in Oxnard, California, where he serves as the Artistic Director and Managing Producer.

His newest play, a psychological suspense drama called Perfect Quiet Place, premieres for a six-week run April 20, 2012, at The Elite Theatre Company.

His newest novel, The Plunge, is a suspenseful saga that "plunges" private investigators, drug dealers, Hell's Angels and corrupt politicians into a fictional town in the Mojave Desert, which may be purchased online in Adobe® Reader®.

He is married with three daughters.

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Reader Review of Worlds Apart

Carmen Miladela Roca-Kruschke:

"This is SUCH a wonderful book! Worlds Apart is FABULOUS. But be pre-WARNED. If you start reading....you'll be hooked.....DON'T START...... Don't EVEN Begin.....You'll have to buy it. Honest. I've bought it and read it through twice. Fabulous."