'The Eagle has Landed' writer Jack Higgins dies at 92

British author Henry Patterson, popularly known by nom de plume Jack Higgins passed away at his Jersey residence on Sunday, his publisher HarperCollins said in a tweet. Higgins was 92.

“It is with great sadness that HarperCollins shares the news that Henry Patterson, most commonly known to the general public by the pseudonym Jack Higgins, has died at the age of ninety-two, at home in Jersey and surrounded by his family. Our thoughts are with them at this time,” HarperCollinsUK tweeted from its official handle.

In a career that spanned over six decades, Higgins wrote 85 novels, most of them thrillers and espionage in nature. His works have been translated into 55 languages.

Teaching career

Born in July 1929 to an English father and a Northern Irish mother in Newcastle upon Tyne, Higgins learned to read at the age of three. He was asked to read The Christian Herald to his ailing grandfather. After a stint in the military, he studied sociology at the London School of Economics. After completing his course, he started teaching at Allerton Grange Comprehensive School. By the late 1950s, he had started writing novels while teaching in the city of Leeds.

In his salad days as a writer, Higgins toyed with pen names like James Graham, Martin Fallon, and Hugh Marlow. He started using the penname of Jack Higgins by the late 1960s, an era which kicked off his best years in the industry.

After penning around 35 novels between the late 1950s and 1970s, he tasted success with minor bestsellers like The Savage Day and A Prayer for the Dying. He shot to popularity with his 1975 novel The Eagle Has Landed, which sold over 50 million copies.

Rising popularity

The book’s popularity grew after it was adapted into a film in 1976, starring Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall.

Succeeding books featuring The Eagle Has Landed protagonist Liam Devlin, an Irish gunman and poet, sold like hotcakes over the years.

Some of his best works include A Prayer for the Dying, The Eagle has Flown, Thunder Point, Angel of Death, Flight of Eagles, and Day of Reckoning.

Higgins is survived by wife Denise Palmer and four children from an earlier marriage.