Life

Thomas Quinn was born in 1951 in Newark, New Jersey to Elmer and Barbara Quinn. He attended Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 1969-1973 and graduated with a degree in Industrial and Labor Relations. He worked in sales and marketing for seventeen years for Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....

. Since then, he has been president of a division of the Irish Dairy Board

Irish Dairy Board

The Irish Dairy Board is a state-backed agricultural marketing cooperative in Ireland. The firm owns the globally famous Kerrygold butter brand....

 and vice president for sales for Warner-Lambert Consumer Healthcare and CIGNA

CIGNA

Cigna , headquartered in Bloomfield, Connecticut, is a global health services company, owing to its expanding international footprint and the fact that it provides administrative services only to approximately 80 percent of its clients...

 Healthcare. Quinn lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania

West Chester, Pennsylvania

The Borough of West Chester is the county seat of Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 18,461 at the 2010 census.Valley Forge, the Brandywine Battlefield, Longwood Gardens, Marsh Creek State Park, and other historical attractions are near West Chester...

.

He is currently writing the third book in his trilogy set in Renaissance Venice. Quinn visited Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 in 1999 and decided to write his first book when he could not find a novel set there, similar to his favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is often considered to be, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas's most popular work. He completed the work in 1844...

. The first book in the trilogy, The Lion of St. Mark, took him four years to write and publish. It begins in 1452 with the attempt to save Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 from Turkish siege and ends in 1472. Much of the book concerns the rivalry between two powerful patrician families, the Zianis and the Soranzos and Venice's savage war with the Ottoman Turks

Ottoman Turks

The Ottoman Turks were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı , from the house of Osman I The Ottoman...

. His second book, The Sword of Venice, spans the years 1473-1484 and chronicles the Ferrara War that pitted Venice against virtually all of her Italian rivals. The third book, working title: Venice Stands Alone, will continue the saga beginning in 1494 with French King Charles VIII's invasion of the Italian Peninsula, opposed by a Venice-led coalition of Italian states.

Quinn has recently completed his fourth novel, a modern day political-action thriller. He is now working on the screenplay adaptation.

The first two books were published by Thomas Dunne Books

Thomas Dunne Books

Thomas Dunne Books, a division of St. Martin's Press, publishes popular trade fiction and nonfiction. Established in 1986 and based in New York City, Thomas Dunne Books publishes approximately 175 titles each year, covering a range of genres including commercial and literary fiction, mysteries,...

, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press. Quinn’s literary agent is Bob Solinger.

The Venetian Trilogy

• The Lion of St. Mark (2005)
• The Sword of Venice (2007)

The first two books were published in Spanish: El león de san Marcos and La Espada De Venecia. The first book was also published in Greek: To Λιοντάρι του Αγίου Μάρκου.

External links

• Author web site http://www.thomasquinnbooks.com/