A Little About Jack Higgins: A Life in Writing

 A Little About Jack Higgins: A Life in Writing

by Ben Boulden

Jack Higgins is a familiar name to most readers. His thrillers have routinely appeared on international bestseller lists since his breakout novel, The Eagle Has Landed, was published in 1975. A book that has been printed more than 50 million times. But Jack Higgins, whose real name is Harry Patterson, wrote 35 novels before The Eagle Has Landed made him a household name, and many of those early novels, especially those published between East of Desolation (the first book with the name Jack Higgins attached) in 1968 and The Run to Morning in 1974, are quite good. At their best, a Jack Higgins novel is linear, well-plotted, exciting, and with a style that is lyrical, and characters that are wonderfully romantic. At their worst, they are bland and lifeless. Higgins’ weakest novels, on average, are those published after 1990, which is about the same time his character Sean Dillon appeared on the scene. Many, but certainly not all, of the Sean Dillon books are weighted by interchangeable plots, characters that are more caricature than realistic, and a stark style that, at its worst, sinks into dullness.

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Jack Higgins' Paul Chavasse: A Cold War Spy

This is the first two parts of a three part series about Harry Patterson’s Paul Chavasse novels, published in the 1960s by Abelard-Schuman and John Long.  The first two parts are an introduction to the character, and the third part is an analysis of the six titles to feature Paul Chavasse.  This essay was originally posted July 2, 2012.

Paul Chavasse:  An Introduction to the Cold War Spy Story

I.       Introduction

The 1960s were a decade of espionage—both in cold war machinations of super power maneuvering and popular fiction.  The popular front of the adventure spy story started when it was made public President John F. Kennedy enjoyed Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels.  According to the JFK Presidential Library and Museum website, Allen Dulles, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, stated:

“‘Jacqueline Kennedy gave her husband his first James Bond book (probably From Russia, with Love).’  Dulles then began to buy other books, and sent them to John F. Kennedy.”

Ian Fleming’s work became a sensation, hitting the major bestseller lists and, in the decades since, becoming a pop culture icon; spawning a myriad of films and, after Fleming’s death, attracting authors great and small to continue the Bond series.  While the James Bond series is the most well known of the adventure spy genre, it is far from the best.  The most striking of its contemporaries was Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm novels—a series first appearing in 1960 with Death of a Citizen, and totaling 27 titles in its three decade run.  

In industry, and publishing is no different, when a commercial strike is made—in this case the rise of Fleming from midlist writer to bestselling phenomenon—a host of copycat products are rushed to market.  One of the many spy novels published in the wake of Fleming’s success was a slim volume published by Abelard-Schuman, a British publisher, in 1962 titled The Testament of Caspar Schultz (Testament).  The name on the copy was Martin Fallon, which was a pseudonym for a young Harry Patterson. 

The name Martin Fallon and Harry Patterson have a long and successful history.  Martin Fallon was used for the protagonist of two separate novels—the first was an early title, Cry of the Hunter, which was published in 1962 under Patterson’s own name, and the second was A Prayer for the Dying published in 1973 as by Jack Higgins.  Mr. Patterson has a tendency to repeat himself, and he did something very similar to the two incarnations of Martin Fallon: He killed both.  The novels are both very good, but A Prayer for the Dying is one of Patterson’s best.

II.    Chavasse

Testament featured a stark and hard protagonist named Paul Chavasse.  Chavasse was a former academic who caught the eye of Mallory, the boss of a British espionage agency answerable to the Prime Minister called “The Bureau,” when he helped a friend escape from Communist Czechoslovakia.  Mallory, known as “The Chief,” offered Chavasse a job while he was in hospital recovering from his wounds.  The Bureau is headquartered in an old house in St. John’s Wood—on a polished brass plate next to its main door is inscribed “Brown & Company – Importer’s & Exporter’s”.

Paul Chavasse is a recognizable character to readers of Harry Patterson; educated, exotic—he was derived from a Breton father and British mother—cynical in a romantic sort of way, and tired of the game he can’t, or really doesn’t want, to leave.  Chavasse’s personal life is not really explored in the novels; however, a paragraph from Testament summarizes his early life, in order to explain his French name—

“My father was a lawyer in Paris, but my mother was English.  He was an officer in the reserve—killed at Arras when the Panzers broke through in 1940.  I was only eleven at the time.  My mother and I came out through Dunkirk.”

The novels are serious adventure stories, but there is some humor.  Enough that it seems Patterson likely had a great time writing the Paul Chavasse novels.  An early scene in Testament finds The Chief explaining why Chavasse can’t have some much needed time off.  When Chavasse asks about two specific agents—Wilson and LaCosta—Mallory responds that Wilson is presumed dead in Ankara, and LaCosta—

“…cracked up after the affair in Cuba.  I’ve put him into the home for six months….I’m afraid we shan’t be able to use LaCosta again.”

Another example is a line from the 2001 edition of The Keys of Hell, where two characters are speaking of Chavasse’s excessive skill as a linguist, “He speaks more languages than you’ve had hot dinners.”

The Bureau is set up similarly to that of Fleming’s MI6.  The Chief is over the top and larger than life, and very, very British, and his private secretary, Jean Frazer, is all curves and someone Chavasse quite enjoys looking at—

“She was wearing a plain white blouse and tweed skirt of deceptively simple cut that moulded her round hips.  His eyes followed her approvingly as she walked across the room to her desk and sat down.” 

While his eyes are appreciative, Chavasse is anything but a womanizer, and his relationship with Jean Frazer is that of a friend.  Chavasse, like most of Patterson’s protagonists, has a romanticized view of women, which is often both a strength and weakness, but it always lends itself to the character’s loneliness—he is an outsider, isolated from a society that depends on his work to survive, and often a gentleman people look upon as fallen far below his stature. 

Chavasse always gets the job done and he does it with a complex mixture of larger than life exploit and human frailty; a mixture and style only Harry Patterson can routinely employ successfully.  It is atmosphere, dialogue and action.  When in top form Patterson can tell a character’s story with the singularity of the way he smokes a cigarette, stirs his drink, or looks at a woman.  The six novels to feature Paul Chavasse are a step below Patterson’s best work, but only just.

Part III.  Novels

1.  The Testament of Caspar Schultz (1962)
2.  Year of the Tiger (1963)
3.  The Keys of Hell (1965)
4.  Midnight Never Comes (1966)
5.  Dark Side of the Street (1967)

To be continued...

EAST OF DESOLATION by Jack Higgins (Harry Patterson)

East of Desolation is the twenty-second novel published by Harry Patterson, and the first to appear under his most famous byline, Jack Higgins. It is also a pivotal title in his transition from midlist to bestselling writer. It was originally released in the U. K. as a hardcover by Hodder & Stoughton in 1968, and it was issued in the United States by Doubleday & Company; it was Mr. Patterson’s first U. S. appearance in hardcover.

Joe Martin is a British pilot flying an Otter Amphibian from the small town of Frederiksborg on the southwest coast of Greenland. The flying season is short and the climate cold, but the money is double what he can earn elsewhere and its lack of civilization suits him. He has summer contracts with several mining outfits, and a special deal flying provisions to an Ernest Hemingway-style actor hunting polar bears and everything else drawing breath. The actor is a washed up legend named Jack Desforge who authors, and perhaps believes, his own mythology.

Things get interesting when an insurance adjuster, Hans Vogel, arrives with the widow of a pilot whose crashed airplane was discovered on the ice-cap a year earlier. Vogel wants Joe to fly him to the wreckage to identify the pilot. The story, both Vogel’s and the widow’s, Sarah Kelso, doesn’t add up and Joe has an uneasy feeling about the whole thing.

East of Desolation marks Harry Patterson’s entrance to the top-tier of adventure writers—Alistair MacLean, Desmond Bagley, Hammond Innes. It is markedly better than its predecessors; its characters are richer with less caricature, the plot is larger with more doubt about its conclusion, and its setting is sturdy with a forbidding sense of isolation. It is first person narrative with a hint of the unreliable. Joe Martin knows more than he is sharing with either the reader or the other players. A characteristic shared by most of the cast—Desforge, Kelso, Vogel—which generates significant tension and unease.

Joe Martin is the most developed protagonist of Mr. Patterson’s early work. He is, like many of Mr. Patterson’s protagonists, a man who has fallen below his station, but he is also more; an alcoholic, divorced, and hiding. His relationship with women is more complex than the usual and there is a nicely executed romance between he and an actress friend of Jack Desforge. An early line nicely defines his feelings—

“I think it was General Grant who said: War is hell. He should have added that women are worse.”

The is plot complicated, there are more variables than Mr. Patterson’s earlier work, and a larger cast with believably suspicious motives. It is enhanced by the strong and forbidding setting of Greenland. The flying scenes, to a rank non-pilot, have the feel of reality and give the story a sense of high adventure. And everything works perfectly.

DARK SIDE OF THE STREET by Martin Fallon (Jack Higgins)

Dark Side of the Street is the twenty-first novel published by Harry Patterson, and the fifth to feature Paul Chavasse. It was originally released in the U. K. as a hardcover by John Long in 1967 under the byline “Martin Fallon”; a name that has a history with Mr. Patterson. It was an early pseudonym, and the name of two protagonists who met similar fates in the novels Cry of the Hunter (1960) and A Prayer for the Dying (1973). It made a pre-The Eagle Has Landed appearance in the United States as a Fawcett Gold Medal paperback in 1974.

Paul Chavasse is employed by a British intelligence organization called “The Bureau”; its director reports directly to the Prime Minister. Chavasse is educated—a former lecturer of linguistics—ruthless, and very much in demand. When he is approached by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch with an opportunity to spend time in a maximum security prison Chavasse accepts with good humor. His assignment is to infiltrate a criminal organization that seemingly has the ability to penetrate any prison, and abscond with the convict of its choosing. And once out, the prisoner vanishes without a trace.

Special Branch believes the next convict to escape will be Harry Youngblood. Harry was convicted of robbing an airport with two associates, and both have already escaped in spectacular fashion. Chavasse’s assignment is to tag along with Youngblood when his escape comes, and get the details of the organization arranging it. He does, and what he finds is both surprising and daunting.

Dark Side of the Street is one of the more accomplished Paul Chavasse novels. The plot is perfectly executed and surprising. The prose is even and consistent, and at times vividly eloquent—

“Rain drifted against the window with dismal pattering and Chavasse looked out across the farmyard morosely. In the grey light of early morning, it presented an unlovely picture. Great potholes in the cobbles filled with stagnant water, archaic, rusting machinery and a profusion of rubbish everywhere.”

There is a nicely executed heist in the opening pages before it settles into straight adventure. Paul Chavasse is a likable protagonist with a knack for finding himself behind bars, and an uncanny ability of getting out. A situation that happens at least once in the first five novels. The central antagonist is interesting for two reasons. The first is Mr. Patterson’s use of an obvious sociopath with an over the top personality (Sean Rogan less the conscience). The second is his name, Simon Vaughan. A name many readers will recognize as the protagonist from The Savage Day (1972), and Day of Judgment (1979); although it is definitely not the same character.      

The plot is also familiar, but the familiarity is external to Mr. Patterson’s work rather than internal. Desmond Bagley used a similar storyline for his excellent 1971 novel The Freedom Trap, filmed as “The Mackintosh Man”, which was inspired by the 1966 escape of British double agent George Blake from Wormwood Scrubs prison. It is likely, due to the proximity between Blake’s escape and the publication date, it also inspired Dark Side of the Street.  

No matter its inspirations, Dark Side of the Street, is one of the better early novels Harry Patterson published. It is the last novel Mr. Patterson wrote before introducing his most famous nom de plume—Jack Higgins—and it is a bridge between his early work and the brilliant novels he wrote in the middle of his career.   

I wrote a short introduction to the Paul Chavasse novels a few years ago you may find interesting.

BROUGHT IN DEAD by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

Brought in Dead is the twentieth novel published by Harry Patterson, and the second to feature Detective Sergeant Nick Miller. It was originally released in the U. K. as a hardcover by John Long in 1967. It is a police procedural that is hijacked by what is seemingly a secondary character, at least early in the story, and twists itself into straight revenge.

Detective Sergeant Nick Miller isn’t an ordinary policeman. He is independently wealthy, thanks to his brother’s television business, drives a Mini-Cooper, and graduated from the University of London. He is also coarse, and frankly, not the most likable of Mr. Patterson’s protagonists; although he is less disagreeable here than he was in his debut novel, The Graveyard Shift.

It begins with the suicide of a young woman who drowned herself, and took extraordinary steps to conceal her identity. She carries no identification, and the identifying tags are torn from her clothing. She is also a recent addict. Her arms have several fresh needle marks, and the pathologist discovers a small amount of heroin and cocaine in her blood. She is, once Miller identifies her, the girlfriend of a local gangster and the daughter of a respected businessman.

Miller is certain it is murder—the dead woman’s boyfriend, Max Vernon, who owns a high end betting parlor and several other less savory rackets, is the primary suspect, but when a witness changes her story at the Coroner’s Court the death is officially ruled a suicide. This is where the novel shifts from a police procedural to a revenge novel. The primary character also shifts, from Nick Miller to the dead girl’s father, Duncan Craig. Craig is the managing director of a successful electronics company, and a former military man who vows to destroy Vernon.

Brought in Dead is an interesting novel. It is rightly a Nick Miller procedural, but the story belongs to Duncan Craig. Craig is the central player in the second half of the novel, and he is also the most interesting. He uses an impressive array of electronic eavesdropping equipment to identify Vernon’s business assets, and then systematically destroys each. As I read the novel I found myself wondering why the entire story wasn’t told from his perspective. It would have been better for it.

The strengths of the novel, as always with Mr. Patterson, are the strong plotting, the precise, stark prose, and the lightning quickness of the story. It features many of the same players as the original Nick Miller novel, The Graveyard Shift, including Jazz pianist and heroin addict Chuck Lazer, Detective Superintendent Bruce Grant, and Detective Constable Jack Brady. It isn’t in the top tier of Harry Patterson’s work, but it is an entertaining and satisfying novel.

I also learned a nice piece of slang—“snout” was used by the police to describe an informer. Now if I could find a use for it in my everyday parlance.

THE VIOLENT ENEMY by Jack Higgins (Hugh Marlowe)

The Violent Enemy is the film title for Harry Patterson’s 1966 novel A Candle for the Dead. A title that lasted well past the film’s fade to black, and still adorns its covers. It is Mr Patterson’s nineteenth novel. It was published in hardcover by Abelard-Schuman as by Hugh Marlowe, and it is one of only a few of Harry Patterson’s novels to remain out of print in the United States until the recent ebook frenzy.

Sean Rogan is an Irishman serving 12 years in a British prison. He is “Irish” to his is prison mates, and on the outside he is an Organization man, which is to say IRA, convicted of arranging prison breaks for his compatriots. The troubles are largely over, the Organization faded away, and Rogan is awaiting a pardon from the Home Secretary. The pardon never arrives, and Rogan’s old boss, Colum O’More, arranges the logistics for his final break out.

O’More has a plan to get the Organization moving again, but he is ill and desperately needs Sean Rogan’s help to pull it off. The plan is to steal a load of paper currency marked for destruction in a rural town in England’s Lake District. The job is simple, but the talent O’More brought in are the kind for treachery, which, along with betrayal, is the novel’s main tenant.

The Violent Enemy is something of a transitional novel in Harry Patterson’s work. It is similar in story and style to his early novel Cry of the Hunter—the lead characters are similar and the plots are mirror images—but Enemy’s characters, particularly Sean Rogan, are developed more expertly. There is much in Rogan that would appear in Mr Patterson’s later character Liam Devlin, and the female lead, Hannah Costello, is a composite for Mr Patterson’s abused, but lovely, strong, and virtuous woman featured in many of his best novels. A character that, more than any other, I associate with Harry Patterson’s work.

It is also transitional in its use of language. The prose is less adorned with elegant, striking and almost beautiful, passages than most of the early novels. It is starker, and standard. It fits the novel, but I wanted for a passage that forced itself to be reread. There were a few very nice moments, mostly dialogue, which is unusual for Mr Patterson—

“‘A fresh start makes old friends of bad ones,’ he said. ‘A proverb my grandmother was fond of.’”   

And, in response to a prison guard’s optimistic job satisfaction—

“‘I’d rather be the devil,’ Sean Rogan said with deep conviction.”

The Violent Enemy’s plot is, as always with Harry Patterson, smooth, complete with nothing left dangling, and familiar. Its pace is not perfect—it builds slowly with a few hiccups, but the climax is executed brilliantly. It is far from Mr Patterson’s best work, but it is a very capable and enjoyable thriller.

The Violent Enemy was produced as a film in 1967. It was directed by Don Sharp (Alistair MacLean’s Bear Island, 1979), and starred two pretty good actors as Sean Rogan and Colum O’More—Tom Bell and Ed Begley, respectively.

"Desert Island Discs": Interview with Jack Higgins

A few years ago I stumbled across an old BBC radio interview, or more accurately conversation, with writer Harry Patterson. It is from a program called “Desert Island Discs”. The host is a smooth voiced man named Roy Plomley, and it was broadcast December 18, 1981.

The conversation meanders across several topics, including Mr. Patterson’s early life, military service, and writings. The talk is done between short music pieces selected by Mr Patterson, and it includes a nice mixture of jazz, big band, and classical. The music is enjoyable, but the interview is a real treat.

A favorite moment is when Mr Patterson discusses his fondness for a band leader named Al Bowlly. Mr Patterson wrote Bowlly, as a background character, into his 1972 novel The Savage Day. The Savage Day was Mr Patterson’s first bestseller, and afterwards he included—at least through 1981—a cameo for Al Bowlly in each of his novels for luck. A recurring character I have never noticed.

A few interesting facts. The Eagle Has Landed was translated into 43 languages, including Welsh. The Harry Patterson novels published after The Eagle Has Landed—The Valhalla Exchange, and To Catch a King specifically—were written for his American publisher Stein and Day and could not include the Jack Higgins name, likely due to contractual issues. The book he would want on a deserted island: The Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot.

The interview runs approximately 48 minutes, and it is well worth a listen. Mr Patterson also appeared in a “Desert Island Discs” episode broadcast March 5, 2006; unfortunately the online stream is currently unavailable. It is also very much worth seeking out.     

THE IRON TIGER by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

The Iron Tiger is the seventeenth novel published by Harry Patterson. It was originally released in the U. K. as a hardcover by John Long in 1966, and it made a pre-The Eagle Has Landed appearance in the United States in October 1974 as a paperback original from Fawcett Gold Medal—the jacket copy reads: “by the author of The Savage Day.” I mention this because I love finding the early U. S. paperback originals.

Jack Drummond is a cynical and somewhat worn out bush pilot making a living flying guns into Tibet. He, like many of Mr Patterson’s characters, is a soft-hearted rogue and something more than he seems. He was drummed out of the Royal Navy Air Fleet during the Korean War for an incident deemed negligent friendly fire, and now works as a mercenary for (so he says) anyone paying the tab.

When he is approached by a beautiful American nurse—returning to the U. S. from two years in Vietnam—to fly a boy who needs eye surgery out of the India-China border country of Balpur he accepts quickly. Unfortunately it doesn’t turn out well for Jack. His plane is a smoldering wreck on the runway of the tiny Balpur airport. A storm—first rain and then snow—raging across the high border country as he escorts, by truck, foot, and horse, an ill boy, a nurse, and an aging priest across the mountainous landscape of Balpur to the Indian border. The Red Chinese army rushing his wake.

The Iron Tiger is both familiar and new, and successful and flawed. It is familiar in that it has the rugged sparse language and plot of Mr Patterson’s best work. It is something of a hybrid between The Year of the Tiger (1964) and The Last Place God Made (1971); although not nearly as good as the later. It also has an echo of Alistair MacLean—the setting, particularly the harsh landscape and weather, and treachery from an unexpected source. The new is the description, especially in the early pages, of India. A particularly nice scene is that of a family giving the ashes of a young child to the Ganges River—

“They stood on the edge of a small crowd and watched the ceremony that was taking place. Several people stood knee-deep in the water, the men amongst them stripped to the waist and daubed in mud. One of them poured ashes from a muslin bag into a larger paper boat. Another put a match to it and pushed the frail craft away from the bank, out into the channel where the current caught it.”

The adventure is pure bliss, but the plot could have been developed more and—this isn’t something I say often—the novel a little longer. The climax was cut short of what it could have been by the brevity of the story. The cavalry was required to save the day (rather than the Drummond and company pulling at off on their own). This isn’t one of my favorite novels by Harry Patterson, but it is entertaining, and fun.

THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

The Graveyard Shift is the fifteenth novel published by Harry Patterson. It was released as a hardcover by John Long in 1965. It is the first of three novels featuring University of London graduate, Mini-Cooper driving, all around sharp guy—if a little coarse and hard—Detective Sergeant Nick Miller.

Ben Garvald, an independent street thug, is released from England’s Wandsworth Prison—in Southwest London—after nine years of a ten year tab. Garvald and two partners robbed a Birmingham steel plant of a $15,000 payroll. In the ensuing chase one of the crooks was killed, one captured—Garvald—and one walked away clean. Now, Garvald his headed back home and he is definitely not wanted. Three street toughs are hired to discourage him, and his ex-wife’s sister asks CID to have a word with him.

Enter Detective Sergeant Nick Miller. An educated copper with money, drives his own Mini-Cooper on the job, an expert in karate and judo, and has a style all his own. He wears a stylish cap called “Schildtmutze”—no idea what it is, but the hipsters all seem to like it. Miller is tasked with finding Garvald, and warning him off, but, as expected the set up isn’t exactly what it seems and the only sure thing? Ben Garvald is at the center of everything.

The Graveyard Shift is a little different (but also the same) from Mr Patterson’s usual. The prose, and the protagonist are hardboiled. It is a straight 1960’s crime novel, but the plotting is old school Harry Patterson—linear, clean and a study of complex simplicity. There is the main storyline—propelled by Garvald as antagonist—and several supporting subplots including an attempted murder of a police constable.

There is also a relatively large cast of characters. The most interesting is an American jazz pianist, hero of the big war, and heroin addict named Chuck Lazer. Lazer is something of a forerunner for Mr Patterson’s Liam Devlin—disillusioned, wisecracking (and even a little wise) Irish rogue from The Eagle Has Landed. The difference. Lazer is more than just disillusioned. He is also a drug addict, which is described depressingly well—

“On top of a small bedside locker were littered the gear that told the story. A hypodermic with several needles, most of them dirty and blunted. Heroin and cocaine bottles, both empty, a cup still half-full of water, a small glass bottle, its base discolored from the match flame and a litter of burned-out matches.”

Unfortunately Nick Miller is less than compelling. He comes across as coarse and even (a little) mean; not to mention a little too cool. That isn’t to say The Graveyard Shift is a bad novel, but rather it would have been significantly more successful if the protagonist was more likable. It is a well-paced, interesting, and entertaining crime novel. It is very definitely of its era—it has a glossy-gritty 1960’s feel—drugs, hip, and distrust. There is betrayal, murder, and enough of the unknown to keep the reader turning pages. 

PASSAGE BY NIGHT by Hugh Marlowe (Harry Patterson)

Passage by Night is the fourteenth novel published by Harry Patterson. It was released as a hardcover by Abelard-Schuman in 1964. It is one of three novels Mr Patterson published as by Hugh Marlowe. This may be the earliest Harry Patterson title published in the United States; a paperback original issued by Avon in 1966.

Harry Manning lost a profitable salvage operation when the fidelistas finished the Bautista regime in Cuba. He escaped Havana with his boat Grace Abounding, and nothing else. Now, between drinks, he makes a meager living as a charter captain. His bitter world is turned over when an airplane—his Cuban exile girlfriend a passenger—crashes into the sea with no survivors. It appears a bomb in the baggage compartment grounded the plane, and when Harry discovers a suspicious name on the passenger list—a man whose luggage was loaded, but who never boarded—he begins a manhunt.

Passage by Night—be patient with the cliché—is vintage Jack Higgins. The plot is everything. It is smoothly executed with a tide of heavy action, and a hard undertow of surprise. The climax is satisfyingly shocking, but wonderfully simple. The Caribbean setting is both exotic and familiar. The Cuban baddies are larger than life, the good guys are heroic, and there is want for a wasted word.

The narrative is less elegant than many of Mr Patterson’s early novels, but it is suitable; not quite utilitarian. There still are examples of his surreal eloquence—

“He checked his pressure gauge again at two hundred feet and stretched out a hand as if to call to her, but he was wasting his time. The darkness moved in on him as the slim white figure disappeared down into the indigo dusk.”        

Passage by Night is a wonderful example of its era. The bad guys are communist, but there is something more than a hint of Nazis, and even better, war criminals. There is a humorous moment when Harry Manning makes a bet regarding Fidel Castro’s longevity—

“‘A hundred dollars American. A year from today, Castro will no longer rule Cuba?’”

A bet Harry lost, and lost badly. There is also the fun of spotting Mr Patterson’s repeats. He has a habit, and not one that bothers me in the least, of repeating himself. The name “Fallon”—a pseudonym used by Mr Patterson, and the name of two unique protagonists—is worn by a less than minor character, and “The Cretan Lover”—the original U. K. title of his novel Solo—is a chapter title.

Passage by Night is pure entertainment, and damn fun.

THUNDER AT NOON by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

Thunder at Noon is the eleventh novel published by Harry Patterson. It was released as a hardcover by John Long in 1964. It was extensively rewritten, and published as Dillinger in 1983, which is a shame because Thunder is a pretty terrific novel and its revision essentially doomed the original story to extinction.

1930. Mexico’s revolution is still a fresh memory. Harry Jordan is an English mining engineer who came to Mexico seeking adventure and wealth. He found an abundance of the former and little of the latter. He spent the last year panning for gold in the Yaqui River basin and as the novel opens he is in Durango waiting for the next train north. His plans change when he is arrested on trumped up tax evasion charges after refusing a job offer from a wealthy mine owner named Don Jose Manuel de Rivera.

Jordan makes the only choice left and accompanies de Rivera to his mine outside the small town of Hermosa in Northeast Mexico. The mine is in deplorable condition. The ventilation system is unusable, and the reinforcing timbers are rotting. De Rivera is determined to get as much gold from the dilapidated mine as he can before it collapses, and the native Indians—who happen to be Apache—are used as something very close to slave labor.   

Thunder at Noon is Harry Patterson’s version of a western. It is more adventure than traditional, but the setting and story are wholly western. The language is less eloquent and more realistic than much of Mr Patterson’s work. It is something approaching hard boiled. An early passage describing the remains of a young woman, after her execution by a Mexican cavalry troop, is particularly rich—

“As [the train] began to pull away, the sun crept over the rim of the mountains, slanting across the valley. The scarlet skirt of the Indian girl, as she sprawled face down, was like blood in the dust.”

The desert landscape of Northern Mexico is realistically rendered as an ambivalent, and somewhat menacing, spectator—

“When he opened the shutters the mountain was waiting for him as it had always done, crouching darkly out there in the desert, its jagged spines touched with gold in the early-morning sun.”

The plot is Harry Patterson’s usual smooth and professional job. No gimmicks. No coincidences. And nothing left dangling. It reads something like a mixture of a Zorro story—specifically the corrupt and brutal landowner—and a western film. I was reminded of both the film “The Searchers” and, particularly the descriptions of the desert landscape, of a Shadowlands story by H. A. DeRosso.

The antagonists—and there are many—are portrayed as something like incarnate evil. A band of outlaw Apaches, led by a warrior named Diablo, are especially brutal. They kill and mutilate with pleasure. It is caricature, but caricature effectively used, and used without malice. Mr Patterson’s portrayal of the outlaw Apaches is juxtaposed by his use of an old Apache chief named Nachita as one of the supporting protagonists, and, after a particularly gruesome death scene one of the protagonists, a veteran of the Great War named Steiner, philosophically utters—

“‘On the Western front we maimed men just as neatly with shrapnel and shell-splinters.’”        

Thunder at Noon is both a superb adventure novel, and a much better than average western. It is one of the more difficult Harry Patterson titles to find. It was, to my knowledge, never published in the United States and never released in paperback in the United Kingdom. I was lucky to find it in a 1965 book club omnibus from Man’s Book (sort of like The Detective Book Club in the United States). Its second incarnation as Dillinger is its lesser self, and at its core very different; meaning more than just the name of the protagonist changed.

The Man’s Book edition included a photograph of a young Harry Patterson, and I was unable to resist posting it here.

WRATH OF THE LION by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

Wrath of the Lion is the twelfth novel published by Harry Patterson. It was released as a hardcover by John Long in 1964, and it is both the longest and best of Mr Patterson’s first dozen novels. Mr Patterson’s early novels all had marvelous titles, and this is one of my favorite. It comes from a line in William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell”—

“The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.”

Neil Mallory is a former SAS Colonel now working for British Intelligence. He is sent to a small island in the English Channel, closer to France than England, to search for a French submarine with a renegade crew. The L’Allouette (ironically meaning “lark” in English) has been cruising the French coast making mischief. It forced a boarding on a ship in the Channel and executed an aging public prosecutor responsible for convicting several of the crews’ comrades.

Mallory’s mission: find the L’Allouette and call in the cavalry. Unsurprisingly, it isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. The island has only a handful of full time residents, and the heavy, who is a self-exiled former military officer from an old line family, seemingly knows more about Mallory’s doings than Mallory knows about his.

Wrath of the Lion is the most complete of Mr Patterson’s earliest work—its characters are crisply developed (and believable—Mallory has something of a genuinely unsavory past), its plot is linear, tricky (in a good way), and while not surprising to the 21^st century reader, it is executed with an almost flawless professionalism and very, very entertaining. The prose is eloquent and smooth describing the action, setting, and characters in a succinct and (somehow) economical manner—

“He took her arm. They walked to the corner and turned into the street. It started to rain, a thin drizzle that beaded the iron railings like silver. There was a dull, aching pain in her ankle and the old houses floated in the fog, unreal and insubstantial, part of a dark dream from which she had yet to awaken, and the pavement seemed to move beneath her feet.”

The setting is a perfect fit for the period it was written. The bad guys belong to a real world French terrorist organization referred to in the novel as the “O.A.S.,” which is an acronym for “Organisation de l’armee secrete”; or its literal English transaction, “Organization of the Secret Army.” The O.A.S. was a group dedicated to keeping French colonial rule in Algeria. It, most notably, made an assassination attempt on Charles De Gaulle in 1962.

The factual detail—sprinkled into the narrative in small morsels—is as interesting as the plot. There is an interesting definition of the word “karate,” a bevy of detail about 1960s French-Algeria relations, the workings—in surprising detail—of the tiny Type XXIII U-boat design (an undersea electric tin can), and even a perfectly placed quote—from what I believe is Shakespeare—

“When you sup with the devil you need a long spoon.”        

—which is everything one expects from a high quality Harry Patterson novel.

Neil Mallory may seem familiar to the regular reader of Mr Patterson’s work, and for good reason. A very different Neil Mallory starred in The Last Place God Made; an incarnation that was saw him as bush pilot rather than a former SAS officer.

SHEBA by Jack Higgins (Harry Patterson)

Sheba is a revised edition of Harry Patterson’s ninth published novel, Seven Pillars to Hell. Pillars was released as a hardcover by Abelard-Schuman in 1963 as by Hugh Marlowe, and Sheba was released as a paperback original in 1994 as by Jack Higgins. Sheba is an example of what Harry Patterson does very well—a linear adventure set in an exotic landscape with a likable protagonist and sinister antagonists.

It is 1939. Gavin Kane is a former archaeologist turned smuggler. He operates a launch from the small port of Dahrein, a fictional place that is likely somewhere in real world Yemen, on the Arabian Peninsula. Kane’s professional interest and greed is piqued when he is approached by an alluring woman with a tale. Her husband is a lecturer of archaeology, and he disappeared after coming to Arabia searching for the Temple of Sheba. The temple is believed to be in Rub’ Al Khali, The Empty Quarter, which is a no man’s land filled with criminals and wanderers. She offers Kane $5,000 in advance, and another $5,000 when her husband is found, and he will earn every penny.

Sheba is a smoothly told adventure yarn. The plot is linear and clever. There are no dangling devices, and one scene leads exactly to the next. The prose is vintage Harry Patterson: stark, succinct, and, in places, eloquent. Everything works, but the setting really shines. The heat and dust and thirst are palpable. An early paragraph describing the harbor is particularly nice—

“The Catalina swung in across the town and splashed into the waters of the harbor. Beyond it a freighter moved slowly across the horizon toward the Indian Ocean, and three dhows in formation swooped in toward the harbor like great birds.”

Sheba has the feel of the Indiana Jones movies. It includes a Nazi plot device, archaeology, and a bunch of action. There are damsels in distress, traitors, and very bad guys. 

I haven’t read Seven Pillars to Hell and I consciously attempted to identify both the new and the old (or what seemed to be the new and the old) in Sheba. The new: the Nazi plot—including Admiral Canaris of Abwehr and a battle injured officer named Captain Hans Ritter who is suspiciously similar to The Eagle Has Landed’s Oberst Radl—was likely added to the original story. The old: Everything else. It is plotted much like many of Mr Patterson's early work, including Sad Wind from the Sea and The Khufra Run.  

Interestingly, Kane refers to Dehrain as “Arabia Felix,” which is a Latin term used by the Romans to describe the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula. “Felix” is translated as “happy”.

A PHOENIX IN THE BLOOD by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

A Phoenix in the Blood is the tenth novel published by Harry Patterson.  It was released as a hardcover by Barrie Rockcliff in 1964, and it is something very different from Mr Patterson’s usual.  It is an off kilter romance with racial tension thrown in for fun.  It is not often you read something like this in a Harry Patterson novel—

“Through the trees he could see the tower of an old church that seemed half-formed, unreal in the mist.  Everything had an air of nostalgic beauty and he was filled with a pleasant sadness.”

Jay Williams is a young, intelligent man of Jamaican descent who, after receiving his PhD in history, is doing his National Service in the Intelligence Corps.  He is learning Russian in a small language school in the textile town of Rainford, England when he meets Caroline Grey.  Caroline is a young girl—only 15 years old—who is more lonely and broken than anyone should ever be.  The two start a strange (and plutonic) relationship that causes something of a stir.  The townspeople understandably whisper about the relationship, and when Caroline’s mother finds out she forces its end.

A Phoenix in the Blood is an uncomfortable novel.  Jay is 23, and Caroline is 15.  The relationship is plutonic—they are basically two lonely outcasts who enjoy each other, but there is something of a romance between them.  The townspeople’s reaction to the relationship is portrayed to be as much about Jay’s race as his age, which, at least in today’s moral mindset is bewildering.  I think, or at least hope, the reaction of a romantic relationship between an adult and a child would be equally concerning whether it is of mixed race or not.

With that said, A Phoenix in the Blood is an enjoyable and smoothly written novel.  Caroline is a sweet girl living with her grandfather, and she is seemingly much older than her years.  Her father died at the Yalu River in Korea, and her mother is a career-minded woman living in London.  Caroline is the most interesting and likable character in the novel.  She is strong, sensible, and just a bit of a romantic.

A Phoenix in the Blood is one of Mr Patterson’s attempts at a literary novel; the other is his fine novel Memoirs of a Dance-Hall Romeo.  It is flawed, but entertaining and, in places, even thought-provoking.  There is an interesting scene late in the novel where Jay is watching Caroline walk toward him across a field.  A passing cloud’s shadow sweeping toward Caroline.  Jay, in an attempt to beat the cloud’s shadow to Caroline, begins to run.

“When he was still thirty or forty yards away, it enveloped her and he stopped running.  And then the shadow passed over him in turn and he felt suddenly chilled.”

This line essentially captures the theme of the novel.  There is a darkness, which Caroline and Jay are unable to escape.  There is a fatal romanticism, which is a tell of time and place.