John Harris (novelist)

John Harris (18 October 1916 – 7 March 1991) was a British author. He published a series of crime novels featuring the character Inspector Pel, and war books. He wrote with his own name, and also with the pseudonyms of Mark Hebden and Max Hennessy. His 1953 novel The Sea Shall Not Have Them was the basis for a feature film of the same name in 1954. He was the father of Juliet Harris, who published more Inspector Pel books under the name of Juliet Hebden.

Harris was the son of Mr & Mrs E. J. Harris, of the Stag Inn, Herringthorpe. A product of Rotherham Grammar School, he worked for the Rotherham Advertiser from late 1932 or early 1933 as a reporter, later moving to the Sheffield Telegraph. Shortly before the Second World War, he and colleague Harold Evans briefly freelanced in Cornwall.

Harris later served in the Royal Air Force as a corporal attached to the South African Air Force. After the war he rejoined the Sheffield Telegraph as a political and comedy cartoonist (his creations included the Calamity Kids and Amateur Archie), and stayed until the mid-1950s when, following the outstanding success of his 1953 novel The Sea Shall Not Have Them—later, in 1954, made into a film of the same name—he became a full-time author. From 1955 he lived at West Wittering, near Chichester, West Sussex. His first published novel was The Lonely Voyage (1951), and he went on to write more than 80 works of fiction and non-fiction, including Covenant With Death (1961). He also wrote as Max Hennessy and Mark Hebden. As Hebden he published a series of crime novels featuring the character Inspector Pel.

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