Born in Devon, England, and educated at University College London, he has written for publications such as The Times, the Daily Mail, The Spectator and The Guardian, mainly on travel, politics and art.

Centring on the Cagot community who lived in the Basque Country, and the troubled history of the German empire in Namibia, it too was an international bestseller.

In Germany, the ebook version, published under the title Cagot, was notable for its experimental use of interactivity and alternate reality games.

[13] A third book, titled Bible of the Dead (or The Lost Goddess outside the United Kingdom) was published in March 2011 in the UK, and in the US in February 2012,[14] and focuses on the Khmer Rouge, while taking in the cave paintings of France, and modern Chinese Communism.

More recently, Thomas has returned to Cambodia and written on the inspiration for this novel, when he attended the 2009 UN trial of Khmer Rouge apparatchik, Comrade Duch.

The article is cited by psychiatrist Norman Doidge in his book The Brain That Changes Itself as a “remarkable account of a man’s descent into porn addiction”[31]