The best-selling author of The Eagle Has Landed, Henry Patterson, has died at the age of 92, according to his publisher.
Between 1959 and 2017, Patterson, who began writing as a teacher, published 85 books. Patterson died in his Jersey home, surrounded by family, according to HarperCollins.
The Eagle Has Landed, a novel published under the pseudonym Jack Higgins about a Nazi conspiracy to capture Sir Winston Churchill during World War II, sold more than 50 million copies and was adapted into a film.
Robert Duvall, Donald Sutherland, and Sir Michael Caine starred in the 1976 adaptation. Patterson's other writings include Comes the Dark Stranger, Hell is Too Crowded, and To Catch a King, and he has sold over 250 million books in his career.
Patterson grew raised in Belfast before migrating to Leeds. He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne and grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne.
After becoming a teacher, he wrote books in his leisure time and obtained a £75 advance for his debut novel, Sad Wind from the Sea, in 1959.
His final novel, The Midnight Bell, was a Sunday Times bestseller when it was released in 2017.