Jack Higgins died recently at the age of 92. The author was best known for his popular thrillers and espionage books, including The Eagle Has Landed. Higgins died at his home on the English Channel island of Jersey, accompanied by his family, according to HarperCollins. Charlie Redmayne, the company’s CEO, said that Jack’s death marked the end of an era. He stated:
“I’ve been a Jack Higgins fan for as long as I can remember.” He was the epitome of a thriller writer: instinctive, harsh, and unyielding. The Eagle Has Landed, as well as his other Liam Devlin novels, his later Sean Dillon series, and a slew of others, were and continue to be completely engrossing.”
Very sorry to hear that the master novelist Jack Higgins has died, aged 92. I first read ‘The Eagle Has Landed’ when @Sibford School in 1976, and the book absolutely blew me away. RIP. @penswordbooks pic.twitter.com/phUQB3WhQJ
— Dilip Sarkar MBE (@DilipMbe) April 10, 2022
Jack Higgins net worth
Born Henry Patterson on July 27, 1929, Jack was best known as the best-selling author of popular thrillers and spy books. His book The Eagle Has Landed has sold over 50 million copies and has been made into a blockbuster film. Higgins’ net worth was estimated to be approximately $86 million by The Richest. Although precise information about his assets is not accessible, he made a lot of money through his writing career.
Everything you need to know to know about jack higgins
Jack Higgins was born in Northern Ireland to an English father and a Northern Irish mother. His father abandoned them, and his mother returned with him to her birthplace of Belfast, Northern Ireland, to live on Shankill Road with her mother and grandparents. When his mother remarried, the family relocated to Leeds, where he received a scholarship at Roundhay Grammar School for Boys. In 1947, Jack started his two-year national service. He originally served with the East Yorkshire Regiment, and later as a non-commissioned officer with the Household Cavalry’s Royal Horse Guards Regiment, conducting border protection on the East German border.
He left the army and returned to college at Beckett Park Teacher Training College in Leeds, where he earned a B.Sc. in sociology as an external student at the London School of Economics. He worked as a driver and worker at night and graduated with honors after three years of study. He subsequently started teaching at Allerton Grange Comprehensive School and took a position instructing in social psychology and criminology. He later taught liberal studies and education at Leeds Polytechnic and James Graham College.
In 1959, the Newcastle native began writing books. His first works were thrillers with hardened, cynical characters, brutal antagonists, and perilous settings. Between 1959 and 1974, he authored 35 books, the most successful of which were East of Desolation, A Game for Heroes, and The Savage Day. In the early 1970s, Higgins’ first small blockbusters were modern thrillers The Savage Day and A Prayer for the Dying. In 1975, he received acclaim with his 36th novel, The Eagle Has Landed. The premise revolved on a German commando force sent to England to abduct Winston Churchill. After the release of Eye of the Storm in 1992, he entered the third phase of his great career. It was a fictionalized account of a failed mortar assault on Prime Minister John Major by Sean Dillon, a cruel young Irish gunman-philosopher hired by an Iraqi businessman.