John Harris, wrote under his own name and also the pen names of Mark Hebden and Max Hennessy. He was born in 1916 and educated at Rotherham Grammar School before becoming a journalist on the staff of the local paper. A short period freelancing preceded World War II, during which he served as a corporal attached to the South African Air Force. Moving to the Sheffield Telegraph after the war, he also became known as an accomplished writer and cartoonist. Other 'part time' careers followed. He started writing novels in 1951 and in 1953 had considerable success when his best-selling ‘The Sea Shall Not Have Them’ was filmed. He went on to write many more war and modern adventure novels under his own name, and also some authoritative non-fiction, such as ‘Dunkirk’. Using the name Max Hennessy, he wrote some very accomplished historical fiction and as Mark Hebden, the 'Chief Inspector Pel’ novels which feature a quirky Burgundian policeman. Harris was a sailor, an airman, a journalist, a travel courier, a cartoonist and a history teacher, who also managed to squeeze in over eighty books. A master of war and crime fiction, his enduring novels are versatile and entertaining.