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Summary
Author Notes
Jack Higgins is a writer and educator, born in Newcastle, England on July 17, 1929. The name is the pseudonym of Harry Patterson. He also wrote under the names of Martin Fallon, James Graham, and Hugh Marlowe during his early writing career. He attended Leeds Training College and eventually graduated from the University of London in 1962 with a B.S. degree in Sociology.
Higgins held a series of jobs, including a stint as a non-commissioned officer in the Royal House of Guards serving on the German border during the Cold War. He taught at Leeds College of Commerce and James Graham College. He has written more than 60 books including The Eagle Has Landed, Touch the Devil, Confessional, The Eagle Has Flown, and Eye of the Storm. Higgins is also the author of the Sean Dillon series. His novels have since sold over 250 million copies and been translated into fifty-five languages.
His title's The Death Trade and Rain on the Dead made The New York Times Best Seller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Jack Higgins is a writer and educator, born in Newcastle, England on July 17, 1929. The name is the pseudonym of Harry Patterson. He also wrote under the names of Martin Fallon, James Graham, and Hugh Marlowe during his early writing career. He attended Leeds Training College and eventually graduated from the University of London in 1962 with a B.S. degree in Sociology.
Higgins held a series of jobs, including a stint as a non-commissioned officer in the Royal House of Guards serving on the German border during the Cold War. He taught at Leeds College of Commerce and James Graham College. He has written more than 60 books including The Eagle Has Landed, Touch the Devil, Confessional, The Eagle Has Flown, and Eye of the Storm. Higgins is also the author of the Sean Dillon series. His novels have since sold over 250 million copies and been translated into fifty-five languages.
His title's The Death Trade and Rain on the Dead made The New York Times Best Seller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Higgins's thrillers may evoke a strong sense of deja vu (same basic story, different time frame), but that doesn't seem to diminish the impact of each new novel. Early in 1991, while the Gulf war is in full bloom, operatives of Saddam Hussein hire legendary terrorist Sean Dillon to take the war to the enemy. A master of disguise and subterfuge, Dillon began his career with the IRA, earning the enmity of Liam Devlin--the unforgettable antihero of The Eagle Has Landed , who makes a featured appearance here--and of Martin Brosnan, an American Special Forces hero and IRA member turned college professor. After Dillon's attempt to assassinate former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during a visit to France fails, he decides to go after her successor, John Major, and his War Cabinet with a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street. Learning that British Intelligence is recruiting Brosnan to track him down, Dillon confronts his old enemy, a meeting that ends in tragedy and leaves Brosnan bitterly committed to revenge. Although readers can be sure that Dillon's scheme will be foiled, fun remains in the how and why. Standard Higgins in style, plot and resolution, this is bound for bestsellerdom. BOMC feature alternate; Reader's Digest Condensed Books selection; audio rights to Dove. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A world-class assassin goes after British PM John Major in Higgins's latest firmly engaging round of speculative derring-do. The Day of the Jackal this isn't, although Sean Dillon--a rogue IRA hit-man who's also a master thespian--is nearly as charismatic a killer as Forsyth's Jackal; and the author's own The Eagle Has Landed it isn't quite either, though Higgins, a diligent literary recycler, revives the spirit, pacing, and even one major player from that 1975 classic. This is the vigorous, rather simple tale of what might have been behind the real-life, still unexplained, mortar attack on Number Ten Downing Street on February 7, 1991. Here, Saddam Hussein, reeling under the allied bombing of Baghdad, asks oily Iraqi billionaire Michael Aroun to avenge Iraqi honor, which Aroun does by joining forces with Stalinist KGB Colonel Josef Makeev and hiring Dillon to blow away Margaret Thatcher, now visiting in France. When Dillon is betrayed by two hirelings and misses his shot at the Iron Lady, he ups the stakes- -why not, he proposes, go after the current PM (here, a most charming chap) and in fact the entire British War Cabinet? Using his Olivier-like powers to pose as several characters, including a bag-lady, and aided by a sexy KGB spy, Dillon sneaks into England, then Ireland, contacts old criminal/IRA pals, and plans. Arrayed against him in an ever-more suspenseful chase are several stalwart British agents, male and female, and two ex-IRA men, including Liam Devlin of Eagle fame. The mortar attack itself has about as much dramatic impact as a hiccup, but Higgins saves his big melodrama for Dillon's attempted escape--which will leave readers happily breathless and waiting for a sequel. The action's so fast, the heroes so valiant, and the villains so blackhearted that not even Higgins's syntax-crunching prose will keep his fans from driving this--his most enjoyable book in years- -up the charts. (Book-of-the-Month Split Main Selection for July)
Booklist Review
The prolific author of, most famously, The Eagle Has Landed, among other thrillers, here imagines what might have led up to the bizarre February 7, 1991, mortar attack on 10 Downing Street. He speculates that Saddam Hussein, miffed that the coalition pushed Iraq out of Kuwait, seeks vengeance by having some high-ranking western devil offed. George Bush is too well protected, an attempt on Iron Maggie fluffs, so the Iraqis have a go at the new prime minister, John Major, and his cabinet. Their hired hand is another of Higgins' fiendishly talented Irish thugs whose services the IRA can no longer afford and whose thirst for murderous challenges it can no longer satisfy. (The guy's terrific at mayhem, able to knock off a kneecap with his foot while he's perched on a barstool!) His white-clad nemeses are French and English secret-service stalwarts and one reformed IRA man. He plots, they chase, bullets fly. Hardened thriller lovers may be in their element. Novices and dabblers may nod off. (Reviewed May 1, 1992)0399137580Ray Olson
Publisher's Weekly Review
Higgins's thrillers may evoke a strong sense of deja vu (same basic story, different time frame), but that doesn't seem to diminish the impact of each new novel. Early in 1991, while the Gulf war is in full bloom, operatives of Saddam Hussein hire legendary terrorist Sean Dillon to take the war to the enemy. A master of disguise and subterfuge, Dillon began his career with the IRA, earning the enmity of Liam Devlin--the unforgettable antihero of The Eagle Has Landed , who makes a featured appearance here--and of Martin Brosnan, an American Special Forces hero and IRA member turned college professor. After Dillon's attempt to assassinate former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during a visit to France fails, he decides to go after her successor, John Major, and his War Cabinet with a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street. Learning that British Intelligence is recruiting Brosnan to track him down, Dillon confronts his old enemy, a meeting that ends in tragedy and leaves Brosnan bitterly committed to revenge. Although readers can be sure that Dillon's scheme will be foiled, fun remains in the how and why. Standard Higgins in style, plot and resolution, this is bound for bestsellerdom. BOMC feature alternate; Reader's Digest Condensed Books selection; audio rights to Dove. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A world-class assassin goes after British PM John Major in Higgins's latest firmly engaging round of speculative derring-do. The Day of the Jackal this isn't, although Sean Dillon--a rogue IRA hit-man who's also a master thespian--is nearly as charismatic a killer as Forsyth's Jackal; and the author's own The Eagle Has Landed it isn't quite either, though Higgins, a diligent literary recycler, revives the spirit, pacing, and even one major player from that 1975 classic. This is the vigorous, rather simple tale of what might have been behind the real-life, still unexplained, mortar attack on Number Ten Downing Street on February 7, 1991. Here, Saddam Hussein, reeling under the allied bombing of Baghdad, asks oily Iraqi billionaire Michael Aroun to avenge Iraqi honor, which Aroun does by joining forces with Stalinist KGB Colonel Josef Makeev and hiring Dillon to blow away Margaret Thatcher, now visiting in France. When Dillon is betrayed by two hirelings and misses his shot at the Iron Lady, he ups the stakes- -why not, he proposes, go after the current PM (here, a most charming chap) and in fact the entire British War Cabinet? Using his Olivier-like powers to pose as several characters, including a bag-lady, and aided by a sexy KGB spy, Dillon sneaks into England, then Ireland, contacts old criminal/IRA pals, and plans. Arrayed against him in an ever-more suspenseful chase are several stalwart British agents, male and female, and two ex-IRA men, including Liam Devlin of Eagle fame. The mortar attack itself has about as much dramatic impact as a hiccup, but Higgins saves his big melodrama for Dillon's attempted escape--which will leave readers happily breathless and waiting for a sequel. The action's so fast, the heroes so valiant, and the villains so blackhearted that not even Higgins's syntax-crunching prose will keep his fans from driving this--his most enjoyable book in years- -up the charts. (Book-of-the-Month Split Main Selection for July)
Booklist Review
The prolific author of, most famously, The Eagle Has Landed, among other thrillers, here imagines what might have led up to the bizarre February 7, 1991, mortar attack on 10 Downing Street. He speculates that Saddam Hussein, miffed that the coalition pushed Iraq out of Kuwait, seeks vengeance by having some high-ranking western devil offed. George Bush is too well protected, an attempt on Iron Maggie fluffs, so the Iraqis have a go at the new prime minister, John Major, and his cabinet. Their hired hand is another of Higgins' fiendishly talented Irish thugs whose services the IRA can no longer afford and whose thirst for murderous challenges it can no longer satisfy. (The guy's terrific at mayhem, able to knock off a kneecap with his foot while he's perched on a barstool!) His white-clad nemeses are French and English secret-service stalwarts and one reformed IRA man. He plots, they chase, bullets fly. Hardened thriller lovers may be in their element. Novices and dabblers may nod off. (Reviewed May 1, 1992)0399137580Ray Olson