Roderick Mayne Thorp Jr. (September 1, 1936 – April 28, 1999) was an American novelist specializing mainly in police procedural/crime novels. His novel The Detective was adapted into a film of the same name in 1968. Thorp is also better known for its sequel, the bestselling novel, Nothing Lasts Forever, which later served as the basis for the film Die Hard, thus Thorp became a creator of the entire media franchise of the same name. Two other Thorp novels, Rainbow Drive and Devlin, were also adapted into TV movies. Source: Wikipedia (en)