Roderick Mayne Thorp, Jr. was an American novelist specializing mainly in crime novels. As a young college graduate, Thorp worked at a detective agency owned by his father. He would later teach literature and lecture on creative writing at schools and universities in New Jersey and California, and also wrote articles for newspapers and magazines. Two of his best known novels were adapted into popular films: his 1966 novel The Detective was made into a 1968 film of the same name, starring Frank Sinatra as Detective Joe Leland, and his 1979 sequel to The Detective, Nothing Lasts Forever, was filmed in 1988 as Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis. Though Die Hard was relatively faithful to Nothing Lasts Forever, it was not made as a sequel to the film version of The Detective. Two other Thorp novels, Rainbow Drive and Devlin, were adapted into TV movies. Thorp died of a heart attack in Oxnard, California.