History Creator / JackHiggins

* AdventurerArchaeologist: Gavin Kane, hired by a woman to find her missing archaeologist husband in 1939 in ''Sheba''. It just so happens that the temple site said husband has found is also being used as a base by ... Nazis! ''Sheba'' was actually one of his earlier books -- initially published as ''Seven Pillars to Hell'' in the 1960s -- but it's no wonder he had it republished in the early 1990s after the success of the ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' movies.

* AdventurerArchaeologist: Gavin Kane, hired by a woman to find her missing archaeologist husband in 1939 in ''Sheba''. It just so happens that the temple site said husband has found is also being used as a base by ... Nazis! ''Sheba'' was actually one of his earlier books -- initially published as ''Seven Pillars to Hell'' in the 1960s -- but it's no wonder he had it republished after the success of the ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' movies.

** Former Queen UsefulNotes/ElizbethII appears in the prologue of ''Exocet''.

** [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen The Queen herself]] appears in the prologue of ''Exocet''.

His most famous work is probably ''The Eagle Has Landed'' (1975) which was made into [[Film/TheEagleHasLanded a movie]] in 1976. He has written 77 novels which have sold more than 150 million copies.

* TheFilmOfTheBook: A few of his novels have been made into films, notably ''Film/TheWrathOfGod'' and ''Film/TheEagleHasLanded''.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Oh yes indeed.

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: The setting of quite a few of his stories -- ''The Eagle Has Landed'', ''The Valhalla Exchange'', ''Night of the Fox'', ''Luciano's Luck'' and ''Cold Harbour'' to name but five. Some of his contemporary thrillers -- ''Thunder Point'', ''On Dangerous Ground'' -- have their prologues take place during this conflict, leaving a MacGuffin for the characters in the main plot to find.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jack_higgins.jpg]]

Henry (Harry) Patterson (born 27 July 1929), better known by his pen-name Jack Higgins, is a British [[note]] English father, Northern Irish mother [[/note]] author, best known for writing thrillers and espionage novels. His most famous work is probably ''The Eagle Has Landed'' (1975) which was made into [[Film/TheEagleHasLanded a movie]] in 1976. He has written 77 novels which have sold more than 150 million copies.

* PenName: Originally, he wrote under his own name -- "Harry Patterson" -- although he also used the [[IHaveManyNames pen names]] "James Graham", "Martin Fallon" and "Hugh Marlowe" because his publishers told him that the reading public wouldn't tolerate more than one book a year from the same author. He started using "Jack Higgins" in the late 1960s, and the last novel for which he ''didn't'' use that name was ''To Catch a King'' (1979). A few of his earlier works have since been rewritten and republished under the name "Jack Higgins", in some cases with a different title -- thus, ''Seven Pillars to Hell'' by Hugh Marlowe (1963) and ''Sheba'' by Jack Higgins (1994) are the same story, with some minor revisions.

* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: His two best-known characters, Liam Devlin and Sean Dillon, are both sympathetically-portrayed ex-IRA men whose loyalties are rather fluid. Devlin, the joint protagonist of ''The Eagle Has Landed'', is working for German intelligence in that book. Dillon, who is first seen orchestrating an attack on Downing Street in ''Eye of the Storm'', is later blackmailed into working for British intelligence. In a couple of novels, Devlin is shown to have been Dillon's [[MasterApprenticeChain mentor]].

Henry (Harry) Patterson (born 27 July 1929), better known by his pen-name '''Jack Higgins''', is a British [[note]] English father, Northern Irish mother [[/note]] author, best known for writing thrillers and espionage novels. His most famous work is probably ''The Eagle Has Landed'' (1975) which was made into [[Film/TheEagleHasLanded a movie]] in 1976. He has written 77 novels which have sold more than 150 million copies.