FFB: The Savage Day -- Jack Higgins

The Savage Day was the first book I read with the Jack Higgins name on it, and I was immediately sold on the author.  I didn't realize that he (actually Harry Patterson) was also Hugh Marlowe and that I'd read a novel by him earlier.  However, after I became a fan, I wasn't so easy to fool again.  When I started reading a book by James Graham (A Game for Heroes), I knew within a couple of pages I'd found another Harry Patterson pseudonym.  

But I digress.  Let's get back to the book at hand, which is one of my favorites by Patterson under any name.  Simon Vaughan is a gunrunner who's in prison when the Brigadier gets him out to take on a job for the British.  He wants Vaughan to work with his fellow gunrunner to recover a lot of British bullion that the IRA has hijacked.  To do this he has to help with running some guns for the IRA.  He's to assist a young man named Binnie and an American woman named Norah Murphy.  Binnie is one of those deadly gunmen who turn up in Higgins' work with regularity.  He's a romantic idealist who really believe in the struggle.   

Naturally nothing goes smoothly.  The first run is hijacked by Frank Barry, a bomb-happy Provo, who's broken off from the IRA, thinking them too easy on kids and civilians.  The object of terrorism is to cause terror, and killing innocents tends to do that.  Many complications ensue, with lot of chases and escapes and other thrills.  A lot of people die, good and bad.  There's a good surprise at the end, too.

The Savage Day is well-written in a deceptively simple style that manages to carry a lot of emotional weight.  Highly recommended.