Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Higgins’ Pre-Fame Prime?

I didn’t begin reading the works of British fictionist Jack Higgins (aka Harry Patterson) until he published The Eagle Has Landed, a World War II-era thriller, in 1975. And it’s been more than a few years since I added a Higgins novel to my to-be-read pile; for some reason, I just lost interest in his brand of storytelling.

Yet I admire blogger Ben Boulden’s collection, in Gravetapping, of the covers from what he calls Higgins’ “golden age” novels, those published between 1959 and 1974. “Mr. Patterson’s pre-The Eagle Has Landed work tended to be lean, deftly plotted, and very linear suspense novels. ... It includes a bevy of truly excellent adventure novels, The Savage Day, A Prayer for the Dying, and The Last Place God Made, which are, by my reckoning his three best novels.”

Take a gander at Boulden’s gallery of Higgins’ books here.

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