Hank Searls

Henry Hunt "Hank" Searls (born August 10, 1922) is an American author and screenwriter. His novels included The Crowded Sky (1960), which was adapted as a film with Dana Andrews and Rhonda Fleming, The Penetrators (1965, writing as Anthony Gray), and The Pilgrim Project (1964), which was adapted as the 1968 film Countdown. Searls also wrote the novelizations for the films Jaws 2 (1978) starring Roy Scheider and Murray Hamilton and Jaws: The Revenge (1987) starring Michael Caine and Lorraine Gary.

Hank Searls' novel The Crowded Sky was made into a motion picture in 1960 by Warner Brothers starring Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, Anne Francis, and Troy Donahue.

Set in the corridors of power of the USAF's Strategic Air Command, the 1965 novel The Penetrators is the story of a maverick Royal Air Force exchange officer who leads a mock Avro Vulcan bomber attack on the USA. Replete with quotes from Curtis LeMay, Robert S McNamara and other key figures of the Cold War era, The Penetrators foreshadowed the kind of richly detailed, political-military thriller which later became the trademark of Tom Clancy. The book also strongly argued the case for the US's manned long-range bomber force, which was then in danger of being phased out in favour of ICBMs.

Searls' novel The Pilgrim Project was adapted for the screen as the 1968 Robert Altman film Countdown, which starred Robert Duvall and James Caan.

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