Very little personal knowledge is actually known about Thomas Harris outside his successful writing career. Black Sunday, is the first of four novels that would gain mixed reviews from his readers, as well as  mixed reviews from his viewers of the screen plays. Three of his novels were bestsellers, which he credits to the years he spent perfecting the details of each. Behind each novel Harris wrote is at least six years of proofreading and editing. The most popular of the four novels is The Silence of the Lambs, which was his third.

Thomas Harris was born in 1940, in Jackson, Tennessee, but his family moved to Rich, Mississippi, shortly after he was born. Harris attended school in Mississippi until he moved to Waco, Texas, to acquire a degree in English from Baylor University. While at Baylor University, Harris worked for the News-Tribune at night, and eventually Harris met a student named Harriet whom he later married. Toward the 1960’s, Harris and his wife divorced, but not before they had had a child, Anne. Over the next few years Harris would write stories for magazines. When Harris graduated in 1964, he spent the next few years in Europe before he began to work for the Associated Press in New York in 1968. The job of general-assignment reporter gave Harris a valuable look into the world of crime, according to his friends. Harris took the information he gathered from reporting and wrote his own novel, Black Sunday. After Black Sunday was published in 1975, Harris decided it was time to quit working for the Associated Press and begin his prominent writing career.

Black Sunday is about a group of Arab terrorists that attempt to bomb the Super Bowl with the help of the Goodyear Blimp and a Vietnam veteran. Ideas for the novel came from Thomas Harris and two other reporters working for the Associated Press. Eventually Harris completed the project and sold it to a publishing company, Putnam. Harris split the money made from the book with his other two colleges, but it would be Harris who would reap the rewards of the reviews to come. Black Sunday turned out to be a bestseller and a superb movie.

Red Dragon is Harris’s second Novel published in 1981. Red Dragon is the story of Will Graham, a FBI agent, and his pursuit for a serial killer. Red Dragon also introduces a character that gives a new definition to eating meat. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lectre is a psychotic psychiatrist that enjoys a good human dinner. Red Dragon became an excellent film, which laid a red carpet for Harris to introduce his next novel.

Many consider Harris’s third novel to be a modern masterpiece in the genre of suspense. The novel was published seven years after Red Dragon. The Silence of the Lambs introduces the reader to a new FBI trainee, Clarice, which is likewise on the hunt for a serial killer. "Buffalo Bill" prowls for young women in order to make a woman’s "skin" to wear. During the novel Clarice seeks the help of Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lectre. The novel journeys deep into the most psychotic thoughts of a madman and shows the brilliance behind the killer. At the same time the novel ventures into the world of Clarice, which leaves her vulnerable to "The Cannibal." The novel became a best seller and went on to become an award winning film.

Harris’s fourth novel, published in 1999, voyages further into the mind of Hannibal Lectre. The FBI agent for the novel is none other than Clarice. The hunt is for Hannibal since he escaped his asylum, and Clarice is hot on his trail. The only problem with the hunt is that Hannibal is actually luring Clarice. The reader learns just how vulnerable a woman can be to the control of a madman. Like Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal made commotion on the screen and in the pages.