Henry Patterson

Henry Patterson, born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, on 27 July 1929, was a British novelist best known by his pen name Jack Higgins. He also wrote as James Graham, Martin Fallon, Hugh Marlowe and Harry Patterson before settling on Jack Higgins for most of his career.

His 1975 novel The Eagle Has Landed, a thriller imagining a German plot to kidnap Winston Churchill, became an international bestseller and was adapted into a 1976 film. He went on to write more than 80 thrillers, including the long-running Sean Dillon series, selling over 250 million copies worldwide.

He died on 9 April 2022 in Jersey, Channel Islands, aged 92.