Undated handout picture issued by HarperCollins Publishers of best-selling novelist Henry Patterson, who wrote 85 books, together with The Eagle Has Landed, utilizing the pseudonym Jack Higgins, has died aged 92. (HarperCollins Writer/PA through AP)
LONDON --
British creator Jack Higgins, who wrote "The Eagle Has Landed" and different bestselling thrillers and espionage novels, has died. He was 92.
Writer HarperCollins mentioned that Higgins died at his residence on the English Channel island of Jersey surrounded by his household.
Born Henry Patterson in in Newcastle, England, in July 1929, Higgins served within the navy earlier than learning sociology on the London Faculty of Economics. He grew to become a trainer within the northern metropolis of Leeds and a author in his spare time, with novels that offered modestly beginning within the late Nineteen Fifties.
That modified with the 1975 publication of "The Eagle Has Landed," a few fictional World Conflict II plot to kidnap British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In a 2010 interview with The Guardian, Higgins recounted a pivotal name from his accountant.
"He requested me what I needed to get out of my writing," Higgins mentioned. "I replied that I wasn't actually positive, earlier than including as a joke it will be good to make one million by the point I retired. He then mentioned: 'Properly you are a bloody idiot. Since you've simply earned that a lot this week. So what are you going to do about it?"'
He was suggested to go away England due to Seventies taxation charges and settled together with his household on Jersey.
"The Eagle Has Landed" grew to become extra standard after the 1976 movie adaptation was launched. Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall have been among the many stars of the eponymously named film that was a field workplace success.
In an announcement, HarperCollins chief government Charlie Redmayne mentioned Higgins' loss of life marked "the tip of an period."
"I have been a fan of Jack Higgins for longer than I can bear in mind. He was a traditional thriller author: instinctive, powerful, relentless," he mentioned.
"The Eagle Has Landed and his different Liam Devlin books, his later Sean Dillon sequence, and so many others have been and stay completely unputdownable."
Patterson wrote almost 80 books, most beneath the pseudonym of Jack Higgins. Different Higgins titles included "The Eagle Has Flown," "Angel of Loss of life," "Day of Reckoning," and "A Darker Place."
In keeping with his writer's web site, the novels have offered greater than 250 million copies and been translated into dozens of languages.
His survivors embody his spouse, Denise, and 4 youngsters from his earlier marriage.
Post a Comment