Legendary British spy writer Harry Patterson - aka Jack Higgins - wrote longhand, starting each evening at his favorite Italian restaurant on the island of Jersey in the English Channel. He then carried on at home until dawn, writing about 5,000-6,000 words a night followed by a breakfast of champagne and bacon-and-eggs before bed.

Born Harry Patterson on July 27, 1929 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the prolific author was one of the great thriller writers of his generation with multiple books turned into Hollywood movies including The Eagle Has Landed with Michael Caine; Thunder Point with Kyle MacLachlan; and Midnight Man with Rob Lowe.

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Higgins’ WWII thriller about a plot to kidnap British PM Winston was his breakout bestseller - an astounding 50m copies of The Eagle Has Landed (1975) were sold - catapulting the university teacher from obscurity to celebrity status in a week. Higgins recalled telling his accountant that he'd like to make $1m before retiring: "He then said: 'Well you're a bloody fool. Because you've just earned that much this week. So what are you going to do about it?'"

To mark Higgins' death in 2022, SPYSCAPE put together five quirky facts you should know about the espionage author: 

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1. Higgins’ research was so authentic it hurt

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The author was so intent on getting the details right that Higgins injured his back jumping off the stage of London’s Albert Hall concert venue. He was writing Solo (1980), about an assassin who is also one of the world’s foremost piano players. His character needed to flee mid-concert, so Higgins flung himself off the stage. The details and authenticity of Higgins’ novel The Eagle Has Landed were also very convincing - so much so, a retired postman appeared on British television claiming to have been one of the residents who’d battled against the fictitious German kidnappers.
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2. Higgins reportedly wrote 85 books and sold 150m copies in all‍

In addition to Jack Higgins, Harry Patterson wrote under pen names including James Graham, Hugh Marlowe, and Martin Fallon: “It's really a problem of being prolific,” he told The New York Times in 1977. “Within a given year, a bestseller gets book-clubbed and paper-backed. If I wrote a second book under the Higgins name, a publisher would say, ‘We already have one on the list.’ So this allows me to have two bestsellers and maybe a movie going, all at the same time.”
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3. Higgins grew up in Belfast’s Shankill Road in Northern Ireland‍

Despite being born in England, Higgins grew up on the Shankill Road, Belfast after his English father left the family and his mother returned home to Northern Ireland. Higgins started reading when he was three years old and his early years were shaped by Northern Ireland’s religious and political violence, which he incorporated into the character of assassin Liam Devlin in Touch the Devil, Confessional, The Eagle Has Landed, Drink With the Devil, and Day of Reckoning.

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4. Higgins’ teacher told him he’d ‘never amount to anything’

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While Higgins grew up in a poor, single-parent family, he won a scholarship to Roundhay grammar school but didn’t excel at academic studies. He was once physically punished by a teacher for throwing a snowball at the school clock. He was told: “You’ll never amount to anything”, a story Higgins told with glee after he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Leeds Metropolitan University in 1995.
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5. Higgins’ novels drew on his military background

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In the early years, Higgins worked as a circus tent hand and tram operator before becoming a non-commissioned British Army officer, Royal Horse Guards, 1947-50. He reportedly also worked along the East German border during the 1950s. Higgins eventually studied sociology at university and taught but gave it up to write full-time at age 41. He received a £75 advance for his first novel, Sad Wind From the Sea (1959), about a gun runner.