Tom Bower

Thomas Michael Bower (born 28 September 1946) is a British writer, noted for his investigative journalism and for his unauthorized biographies, often of business tycoons and newspaper proprietors. His books include unauthorised biographies of Tiny Rowland, Robert Maxwell, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Geoffrey Robinson, Gordon Brown and Richard Branson. His 2003 book Broken Dreams: Vanity, Greed and the Souring of British Football won the 2003 William Hill Sports Book of the Year. 2Biography Bower's parents were Jewish refugees who fled Prague after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and arrived in London later that same year. After attending the William Ellis School in Hampstead, Bower studied law at the London School of Economics, before working as a barrister for the National Council of Civil Liberties. In 1970 Bower joined the BBC as a researcher on the programme 24 Hours before becoming a reporter on Panorama. He was a producer on Panorama from 1975 until 1987, and he left the BBC in 1995. Bower is married to Veronica Wadley, former editor of the London Evening Standard, and has four children. 2Books and journalism Bower's second book was Klaus Barbie: The Butcher of Lyon (1984) which documented Klaus Barbie's war crimes during World War II as head of the Gestapo in Lyon, Germany and his post-war work for the American intelligence agency CIC and South American narcotics and arms dealers. Bower's book was serialised in The Times in September 198