I know that you are supposed to name-check someone like Proust or even Murukami when you are asked who your favourite author is, I have to admit I find all that a little pretentious. One of the marvelous things about books is the variety on offer and that there is always something to fit any occasion. So, I have to admit that some days when asked that question the answer might be, for example, Dick Francis. This leads me neatly to Jack Higgins, who I would say was far from fashionable these days.
Considering my favourite book, well, that chops and changes frequently too, but on many days my answer might be 'The Eagle Has Landed'. I love the plotting, the pacing and the characterisation. It has that 'Day of the Jackal' quality about it too; you know they aren't going to kill Churchill, we're not in 'Fatherland' territory, but the buildup is spectacular. I've read and appreciated (but wouldn't rave about) the sequel 'The Eagle Has Flown' and hadn't realised that Higgins had continued with Liam Devlin in a couple of novels set in the 80s.
I always believe in considering a book for what it is, rather than what it isn't. These are a couple of page-turner thrillers, contemporary to the time they were published. Compared to the vast tomes we are saddled with today, these are almost short stories and I whipped through them in a matter of days.
Liam Devlin has grown old and is an academic in Dublin. So far, so unlikely, but that was Devlin's character for you. 'Touch The Devil' has shades of 'Papillon' and 'The Count of Monte Cristo', but begins during the Vietnam War, so lots of bases covered here. 'Confessional' hangs around two events that I had forgotten were so closely linked, the Falklands War and the Papal visit to the UK and Ireland.
In these very different times, it is easy to forget the shadow that the Cold War cast over popular fiction. We are in completely different territory to Le Carre here though. While sometimes the pace in the Smiley trilogy is glacial (and that is no bad thing), here the action zings along at a cracking pace. In 'Confession', there is even a brief trip to Jersey, almost like a forgotten episode of Bergerac.
One thing that Higgins does to add authenticity to his work is to bring real people in, so it is a shock to find Martin McGuinness (no 'Chuckle Brother' then) in a major supporting role. There are some moments of genuine nastiness in both books, but they seem nowhere near as gratuitous as in some more recent examples of this genre.
A couple of easy reads then, but ones that remind us of a very different world that was not so long ago. To identify a dangerous criminal on the run at one stage, various people are brandishing copies of a newspaper. Mobile phones are nowhere to be seen and the internet would have seemed like a far-fetched fantasy.
Jack Higgins is still going strong, he has a new book out this month. I might buy it. Now where did I put those Sid Halley books again . . ?
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