Henry "Harry" Patterson (27 July 1929 – 9 April 2022), commonly known by his pen name Jack Higgins, was a British author. He was a best-selling author of popular thrillers and espionage novels. His novel The Eagle Has Landed (1975) sold more than 50 million copies and was adapted into a successful 1976 movie of the same title.

Some of his other notable books are A Prayer for the Dying (1973), The Eagle Has Flown (1991), Thunder Point (1993), Angel of Death (1995), Flight of Eagles (1998), and Day of Reckoning (2000). His 85 novels in total have sold more than 250 million copies and have been translated into 55 languages.Jack Higgins

Early life
Jack Higgins was born Henry Patterson on 27 July 1929 in Newcastle upon Tyne to an English father and a Northern Irish mother. When his father abandoned them soon afterward, his mother returned with him to her home town of Belfast, Northern Ireland, to live with her mother and her grandfather on the Shankill Road. 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. At night, he would crouch beneath a window and read by the light of street lamps.

When his mother remarried, the family relocated to Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, where Patterson won a scholarship to attend 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, and later as a non-commissioned officer of the Royal Horse Guards Regiment of the Household Cavalry doing security work on the East German border.

After leaving the army, he returned to education at Beckett Park teacher training college in Leeds and studied for a BSc sociology degree as a London School of Economics external student, taking his finals in Bradford in 1961. By day, he was working as a driver and labourer at night. He chose the university for its "history of nonconformism". He received his third-class degree after three years of study. After getting a teaching qualification, he started teaching at Allerton Grange Comprehensive School. He accepted a job lecturing in social psychology and criminology. He taught liberal studies at Leeds Polytechnic and education at James Graham College, which became part of Leeds Polytechnic in 1976.

Career

In 1959, Higgins began writing novels. One of his aliases was James Graham. The growing success of his early work allowed him to take time off from his teaching, which he quit eventually to become a full-time novelist.

Patterson's early novels, using his own name (as "Harry Patterson") as well as 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) are notable among his early work for their vividly described settings (Greenland, the Channel Islands, and Belfast, respectively) and offbeat plots.

Patterson began using the pseudonym Jack Higgins during the late 1960s; his first minor bestsellers were published during the early 1970s, two contemporary thrillers The Savage Day and A Prayer for the Dying, but it was the publication of his thirty-sixth book, The Eagle Has Landed, in 1975, that made Higgins' reputation. Its plot concerns a German commando unit sent into England to kidnap Winston Churchill. The main character is arguably an Irish gunman and poet, Liam Devlin. Higgins followed The Eagle Has Landed with a series of thrillers, including several (Touch The Devil, Confessional, The Eagle Has Flown) featuring the character 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 main character for the next series of novels (22 out of 43 published between 1992 and 2017), 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 civilised legal system.

Personal life and death
Higgins met Amy Hewitt while both were studying at the London School of Economics. They were married in 1958, soon after he received a £75 advance for his first novel—"the biggest wedding present we could have had." They had four children: Sarah (born 1960), Ruth (born 1962), Sean (born 1965), and Hannah (born 1974). Their daughter Sarah Patterson authored the novel The Distant Summer (1976). The marriage ended in 1984. In 1985, he married his second wife, Denise Palmer, who was a contemporary of Theresa May at St Hugh's College, Oxford. 

Higgins died at his home in Jersey, on 9 April 2022, at the age of 92.

Bibliography

Filmography

References

External links
 
 
 The Unofficial Jack Higgins Homepage
 Jack Higgins Blog
 Author's page at HarperCollins Publishers
 Guide to Jack Higgins thrillers

1929 births
2022 deaths
20th-century English male writers
20th-century English novelists
20th-century pseudonymous writers
21st-century English male writers
21st-century English novelists
21st-century pseudonymous writers
Academics of Leeds Beckett University
Alumni of the London School of Economics
Anglicans from Northern Ireland
Blues and Royals soldiers
English male novelists
English people of Northern Ireland descent
English thriller writers
Jersey writers
Writers from Newcastle upon Tyne
People from Northern Ireland of English descent
Writers from Belfast
Writers from Leeds
잭 히긴스(, 1929년 7월 27일~2022년 4월 9일)는 영국의 소설가 해리 패터슨()이 주로 쓰던 필명이다. 60권이 넘는 (장편)소설을 썼다. 대부분 다양한 유형의 스릴러로서, 그의 이름을 널리 알린 《독수리 내려앉다》(The Eagle Has Landed, 1975년)를 포함해 많은 베스트셀러들을 썼다.

생애 
영국 뉴캐슬어폰타인에서 태어났다. 부모가 이혼 후, 어머니를 따라 북아일랜드 벨파스트로 이주했다. 그곳에서 종교적, 정치적 폭력의 한 가운데서 성장하였다. 벨파스트와 리즈에서 공부에 무관심했던 그는 학업을 중도에 그쳐버렸다. 오히려 군대에서 적성을 찾는 듯했지만(영국군에 입대), 1950년대의 최고사령부소속 기병대(Household Cavalry)로 동독 국경에서 2년간을 하사관으로 복무하는 데 그쳤다. 군복무 중에 자신이 뛰어난 저격솜씨와 상당한 지력(육군 지능테스트에서 147을 기록했다고 한다)을 지녔음을 알았다. 군을 제대한 후 학교로 복귀하여 자동차운전이나 노동을 하여 스스로 벌면서 학업을 계속하였다. 학위를 받은 후 한동안 교사로서 일한 후 1959년부터 소설을 쓰기 시작했다. 초기작품이 성공을 거두면서 생업을 접고 글을 쓰는 데에만 전념하였다. 노년에 채널 제도의 저지섬에서 거주하면서 거의 매년 작품을 발표했으나 2022년 4월 9일 92세의 나이로 별세했다.

작업 
본명이나 다양한 가명(James Graham, Martin Fallon, Hugh Marlowe)으로 쓰여진 초기저작들은 경쾌하고 뛰어난 작품들이지만 전형적인 영웅에 무자비한 악당이 나오는 그저그런 정도의 스릴러였다. 1959년부터 1974년까지 그런 정도의 작품들을 35권 썼는데 그 중 《East of Desolation》 (1968), 《A Game for Heroes》 (1970) 《The Savage Day》 (1972) 만이 수작이라고 할 수 있다.

잭 히긴스라는 필명을 1960년대부터 써왔지만 히긴스라는 이름에 명성을 부여한 것은 《독수리 내려 앉다》(1975)였다. 그 플롯(독일 특수부대가 영국의 윈스턴 처칠을 납치하려고 침투한다)은 신선했고 독창적이었으며(사실 플롯은 알베르토 카발칸티 Alberto Cavalcanti 의 《잘 지냈나? Went the Day Well?》을 연상시킨다), 등장인물들은 초기작품들에 비해 뚜렷한 깊이가 있었다. 특히 아일랜드군 출신에 시인, 철학자인 리암 데블린(Liam Devlin)이 인상적이었다. 연이어서 야심적인 스릴러들을 발표했는데 그 중 몇 권에 데블린이 등장한다(《Touch the Devil》, 《confessional》, 《The Eagle Has Flown》). 2016년 《The Midnight Bell》을 발표하는 등 작품활동을 하였다.

작품 목록

연작물(시리즈) 
저자가 사용한 필명을 중심으로 구분
Paul Chavasse
 The Testament of Caspar Schultz (1962)
 Year of the Tiger (1963)
 The Keys of Hell (1965)
 Midnight Never Comes (1966)
 The Dark Side of the Street (1967)
 A Fine Night for Dying (1969)
 Day of Judgment (1978)

Simon Vaughn
 The Savage Day (1972)
 Day of Judgement (1979)
Nick Miller (Harry Patterson)
 The Graveyard Shift (1965)
 Brought in Dead (1967)
 Hell Is Always Today (1968)

Liam Devlin
 The Eagle Has Landed (1975)
 Touch the Devil (1982)
 Confessional (1985)
 The Eagle Has Flown (1985)
Dougal Munro and Jack Carter
 Night of the Fox (1986)
 Cold Harbour (1989)
 Flight of Eagles (1998)

  Sean_Dillon
 Eye of the Storm (1992)
 Thunder Point (1993)
 On Dangerous Ground (1994)
 Angel of Death (1995)
 Drink with the Devil (1996)
 The President's Daughter (1997)
 The White House Connection (1998)
 Day of Reckoning (2000)
 Edge of Danger (2001)
 Midnight Runner (2002)
 Bad Company (2003)
 Dark Justice (2004)
 Without Mercy (2005)
 The Killing Ground (Feb 2008)
 Rough Justice (Aug 2008)

Rich and Jade (Justin Richards)
 Sure Fire (2006)
 Death Run (2007)
 Sharp Shot (2009)

비연작물 
 Sad Wind from the Sea (1959) (Harry Patterson)
 Cry of the Hunter (1960) (Harry Patterson)
 The Thousand Faces of Night (1961) (Harry Patterson)
 Comes the Dark Stranger (1962) (Harry Patterson)
 Hell Is Too Crowded (1962) (Harry Patterson)
 The Dark Side of the Island (1963) (Harry Patterson)
 Pay the Devil (1963) ( Harry Patterson)
 Seven Pillars to Hell (1963) (Hugh Marlowe)
 Thunder At Noon (1964) (Harry Patterson)
 Passage By Night (1964) (Hugh Marlowe)
 Wrath of the Lion (1964) (Harry Patterson)
 A Phoenix in the Blood (1964) (Harry Patterson)
 A Candle for the Dead (1966) (Hugh Marlowe)
 The Iron Tiger (1966) ( Harry Patterson)
 East of Desolation (1968)
 In the Hour Before Midnight (1969)
 A Game for Heroes (1970) (James Graham)
 Night Judgement At Sinos (1970)
 The Last Place God Made (1971)
 Toll for the Brave (1971) (Harry Patterson)
 The Wrath of God (1971) (James Graham)
 The Savage Day (1972)
 The Khufra Run (1972) (James Graham)
 A Prayer for the Dying (1973): 죽은 자를 위한 기도(1973)
 The Run to Morning (1974) (James Graham)
 Storm Warning (novel)|Storm Warning (1976)
 The Valhalla Exchange (1976)
 To Catch a King (1979) (Harry Patterson)
 Solo (1980) aka The Cretan Lover
 Luciano's Luck (1981)
 Exocet (1983)
 A Season in Hell (1988)
 Memoirs of a Dance Hall Romeo (1989)
 Sheba (1995)

외부 링크 
 
 The Unofficial Jack Higgins Homepage
 Jack Higgins Blog

1929년 출생
2022년 사망
영국의 소설가
런던 정치경제대학교 동문
리즈 출신