Roderick Mayne Thorp, Jr. was an American novelist specializing mainly in crime novels. He is best known for his bestselling novel Nothing Lasts Forever which is the basis for the film Die Hard starring Bruce Willis. His 1966 novel The Detective was made into a 1968 film of the same name, starring Frank Sinatra as Detective Joe Leland. Die Hard follows its source material Nothing Lasts Forever closely; many of the film's memorable scenes, characters, and dialogue are taken directly from the bestselling novel. The Los Angeles Times called it, "A ferocious, bloody, raging book so single-mindedly brilliant in concept and execution it should be read at a single sitting." Two other Thorp novels, Rainbow Drive and Devlin, were adapted into TV movies. Thorp died of a heart attack in Oxnard, California.