Lakeman, Thomas 1964-

PERSONAL:

Born March 10, 1964, in Mobile, AL; divorced. Education: University of the South, B.A.; Carnegie-Mellon University, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Marian Young, The Young Agency, 156 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER:

Formerly worked in marketing for Universal Pictures; Digital Planet (multimedia design company), cofounder, 1994, creative director in Los Angeles, CA, 1998-2000; worked for DNA Studio, 2000; University of South Alabama, Mobile, currently member of literature and creative writing faculty.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Thomas J. Watson fellowship.

WRITINGS:

The Shadow Catchers, St. Martin's Minotaur (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

The road that eventually led Thomas Lakeman to write a crime thriller was a circuitous one. After earning a master's degree in playwriting from Carnegie-Mellon University, he moved to California, where he hoped to establish a career as a screenwriter. Instead, he ended up cofounding the multimedia company Digital Planet in 1994. Here, he was involved in a wide variety of projects, ranging from creating movie Web sites to producing Madeleine's Mind, the first animated series created on the Internet. Two years after his company was bought out by a larger corporation, Lakeman quit the Internet business just in time for the dot-com bust of 2000. Fortunately, he found work teaching at the University of South Alabama and received positive reviews for his first novel, The Shadow Catchers.

The story of a disgraced FBI agent who moves to a small western town only to become involved in a grim case of a serial child killer, The Shadow Catchers contains many mystery and crime novel elements that audiences will find familiar, according to reviewers. "There's little new here," as Patrick Anderson pointed out in a Washington Post assessment, "but the novel works because Lakeman relates his nightmare with skill, confidence and a sharp eye for detail—he believes in his dark tale enough to make us buy it, too." January Magazine contributor David Thayer called the novel "a surprisingly intelligent and gripping yarn based on what is a classic set-up."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2006, review of The Shadow Catchers, p. 705.

Publishers Weekly, July 31, 2006, review of The Shadow Catchers, p. 57.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL), December 13, 2006, Oline H. Cogdill, review of The Shadow Catchers.

Washington Post, November 6, 2006, Patrick Anderson, "Carnage and a Well-Turned Phrase," review of The Shadow Catchers.

ONLINE

Armchair Interviews,http://www.armchairinterviews.com/ (March 2, 2007), Andrea Sisco, review of The Shadow Catchers.

Gumshoe Review,http://gumshoereview.com/ (October 3, 2006), Ernest Lilley, "Interview: Thomas Lakeman."

January Magazine,http://www.januarymagazine.com/ (November 1, 2006), David Thayer, "Dyer Straights," review of The Shadow Catchers.

New Mystery Reader,http://www.newmysteryreader.com/ (September 1, 2006), Stephanie Padilla, review of The Shadow Catchers.

Thomas Lakeman Home Page,http://www.thomaslakeman.com (March 2, 2007).