Thomas Harris (born 1940 in Jackson, Tennessee) is an author, most famous for his book The Silence of the Lambs, which was made into a motion picture starring Jodie Foster as trainee FBI agent Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins in an Oscar-winning portrayal of psychopathic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter. This book (and movie) is the sequel to the book (and movie) Red Dragon (which has also been filmed under the title Manhunter) which also included Dr. Lecter as a character.

Harris was born in Tennessee but moved as a child with his family to Rich, Mississippi . He attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he majored in English and graduated in 1964. While in college, he worked as reporter for the local newspaper, the Waco Tribune-Herald , covering the police beat. In 1968, he moved to New York to work for the Associated Press.

The deaths of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics compelled Harris to write the 1975 best-selling book Black Sunday, a fictional novel about the plans of a terrorist group to seize control of a blimp, place a shrapnel bomb on board, and explode it during the Super Bowl. This book was also made into a movie starring Robert Shaw and Bruce Dern.

He has a new Lecter novel out in 2005.

Books by Thomas Harris:

• Black Sunday
• Hannibal
• Red Dragon
• The Silence of the Lambs