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Thomas is an author, former chef, and one of the few people crazy enought to walk more than 3,200 miles across America ocean to ocean. Before turning to fiction full time, he spent nearly three decades in professional kitchens, leading fine dining restaurants and multi-unit culinary operations across the United States. Somewhere between dinner rushes, bad decisions, and crossing deserts on foot, he started writing the kinds of stories he actually wanted to read: darkly funny crime novels filled with flawed people, strange ambition, and terrible ideas executed with confidence.
His first novel, Death, Discovery and Carne Asada, blended fiction with his real-life walk across America and became an Amazon bestseller in multiple categories. His newest novel, Dime Store Hitman, launches a new trilogy following Eddie “The Cowboy” DelDuco, a low-budget Los Angeles hitman who solves problems with clearance-bin weapons, questionable ethics, and just enough charm to keep people making terrible decisions around him.
When he’s not writing, Thomas is the co-owner and COO of The Hood Kitchen Space in Southern California, where he helps food entrepreneurs bring their products to life through commercial kitchens and small-batch co-manufacturing.He still believes the best stories come from uncomfortable roads, overheard conversations, and people who probably shouldn’t trust each other.
My name is
WINK
and that guy below me is
Thomas
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He’s not really a killer.
He just liked pretending to be on in his book.
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Let me tell y’all what really happened.
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In 2019, a little over a month after turning fifty, Thomas blew up his life as a chef of 27 years, drove down near the Mexico border, and rescued me off the streets of Tijuana. I didn’t know what was happening. One minute I’m a street dog dodging traffic and questionable tacos, the next minute I’m riding shotgun with a middle-aged man having some kind of existential crisis.
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Then he tells me we’re walking across America.
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Not driving.
Walking.
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From the Atlantic Ocean all the way back to the Pacific.
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Over the next 231 days, we walked 3,235 miles through 12 states, averaged 21 miles a day, and took something like 7.68 million steps before diving into the Pacific Ocean in Newport Beach, California.
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Along the way, Thomas got deathly ill twice, dodged a tornado in Oklahoma by hiding in a concrete bunker, and had a gun pulled on him on the exact same day because apparently one near-death experience wasn’t enough. He slid down a fire pole wearing nothing but a fire captain’s helmet. Yes, there’s video. No, I will not be sharing it unless properly bribed with beef jerky.
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He also somehow learned to live without showers, deodorant, dignity, or vegetables. Mostly fueled by Top Ramen, gas station hot dogs, and Slim Jims.
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Every night in cheap motel rooms and little tents, Thomas wrote our story. Somewhere between the miles, the blisters, and the bad decisions, he turned the journey into a strange tale about love, loss, revenge, murder, and finding out who you are when everything comfortable gets stripped away.
Oh, and we also found the world’s largest dandelion.
Most importantly, our walk raised over $20,000 for the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation because kids shouldn’t have to fight cancer while grown adults complain about traffic and oat milk.
Not bad for a stray dog and a washed-up chef.
