Jack Higgins

Henry Patterson (born 27 July 1929), known by his pen name Jack Higgins, is a British writer and novelist. He is one of the best-selling authors of popular thrillers and espionage novels. His breakthrough novel The Eagle Has Landed (1975) sold over 50 million copies^[1] and was adapted into a successful film by the same title.^[2]

Some of his other notable books are A Prayer for the Dying (1987), The Eagle Has Flown (1991), Thunder Point (1993), Angel of Death (1995), Flight of Eagles (1998), and Day of Reckoning (2000).^[1] His 84 novels in total have sold over 150 million copies and have been translated into 55 languages.^[3]

Biography

Early life

Jack Higgins was born Henry Patterson^[4] on 27 July 1929 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.^[1] When his father abandoned them soon after, his Irish mother returned with him to her home town of Belfast, Northern Ireland, to live with her mother and her grandfather on Shankill Road.^[1] Raised amid the religious and political violence of Belfast, Patterson learned to read at the age of three, when he was tasked with reading The Christian Herald to his bed-ridden grandfather.^[1] At night, he would crouch beneath a window and read by the light of the street lamps.

I read Oliver Twist when I was six. Not because it was a classic, but because it was a book that was available. I probably didn't understand everything in it—for years I used to pronounce the word rogue as rogger—but I didn't care. I just loved reading.^[1]

When his mother remarried, the family moved to Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, where Patterson attended the Roundhay Grammar School for Boys. He proved to be an indifferent student and left school with few formal qualifications. In 1947 he began two years of National Service, at first with the East Yorkshire Regiment,^[5] and later as a non-commissioned officer in the Royal Horse Guards Regiment of the Household Cavalry^[6] doing security work on the East German border.^[7][1] During his military service, Patterson discovered that he possessed both considerable sharpshooting skills and considerable intelligence.

After leaving the army, he returned to London to study Sociology at London School of Economics while supporting himself as a driver and labourer at night. He chose the school for its "history of nonconformism".^[1] He received his third-class degree after three years of study.^[1] After getting a teaching qualification, he took a job lecturing in Social Psychology and Criminology at Allerton Grange Secondary School Leeds.^[1] He taught Liberal Studies at Leeds Polytechnic and Education at James Graham College, which became part of Leeds Polytechnic in 1976.

Writing career

In 1959, Higgins began writing novels.^[1] One of his aliases was James Graham. The growing success of his early work allowed him to take time off from his teaching, and he eventually left the classroom to become a full-time novelist.

Patterson's early novels, written under his own name as well as under the pseudonyms James Graham, Martin Fallon, and Hugh Marlowe, are thrillers that typically feature hardened, cynical heroes, ruthless villains, and dangerous locales. Patterson published thirty-five such novels (sometimes three or four a year) between 1959 and 1974, learning his craft. East of Desolation (1968), A Game for Heroes (1970) and The Savage Day (1972) stand out among his early work for their vividly drawn settings (Greenland, the Channel Islands, and Belfast, respectively) and offbeat plots.

Patterson began using the pseudonym Jack Higgins in the late 1960s; his first minor bestsellers appeared in the early 1970s, two contemporary thrillers The Savage Day and A Prayer for the Dying^[8] but it was the publication of his thirty sixth book, The Eagle Has Landed, in 1975, that made Higgins' reputation. The Eagle Has Landed represented a step forward in the length and depth of Patterson's work. Its plot concerns with a German commando unit sent into England to kidnap Winston Churchill, and is reminiscent of Alberto Cavalcanti's wartime film Went the Day Well?, which itself was directly based on the 1942 Graham Greene short story "The Lieutenant Died Last". The main character is Irish gunman, poet, and philosopher Liam Devlin. Higgins followed The Eagle Has Landed with a series of thrillers, including several (Touch the Devil, Confessional, The Eagle Has Flown) featuring return appearances by Devlin.

The third phase of Patterson's career began with the publication of Eye of the Storm in 1992, a fictionalised retelling of an unsuccessful mortar attack on Prime Minister John Major by a ruthless young Irish gunman-philosopher named Sean Dillon, hired by an Iraqi millionaire. Cast as the central character over the next series of novels, it is apparent that Dillon is in many ways an amalgamation of Patterson's previous heroes — Chavasse with his flair for languages, Nick Miller's familiarity with martial arts and jazz keyboard skills, Simon Vaughan's Irish roots, facility with firearms and the cynicism that comes with assuming the responsibility of administering a justice unavailable through a civilized legal system.

Personal life

Higgins met Amy Hewett while both were studying at the London School of Economics.^[4] They were married in 1958, shortly after receiving a £75^[1] ($210) advance for his first novel—"the biggest wedding present we could have had."^[4] They have four children: Sarah (born 1960), Ruth (born 1962), Sean (born 1965), and Hannah (born 1974).^[4][9] Their daughter Sarah Patterson penned the novel The Distant Summer (1976).^[10] Higgins lives on Jersey, in the Channel Islands, with his second wife, Denise.^[1][11]

Bibliography

Filmography

References

External links

• Jack Higgins on IMDb
• The Unofficial Jack Higgins Homepage
• Jack Higgins Blog
• Author's page at HarperCollins Publishers