Simon Higgins

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Simon Higgins (born 1958) is an English born Australian author of young adult novels who turned to writing in 1998 after a successful career in law enforcement, serving as a police officer and state prosecutor before also working as a private investigator, all in South Australia.

His published works include adventure stories with science fiction elements, such as the bestseller Thunderfish and its sequels Under No Flag and In the Jaws of the Sea (Random House, Sydney) in which issues such as modern piracy, illegal whaling, and the collapse of the ocean's food chain serve as backdrops to harrowing rescues and submarine warfare.

Higgins has also written gritty crime thrillers such as Doctor Id, Cybercage, and The Stalking Zone featuring unwilling psychic detective Jade Draper, (also Random House Australia) and the futuristic survival drama Beyond the Shaking Time (Hodder Headline Australia).

Doctor Id and Thunderfish were each recognized as a Notable Book of the Year by the Children's Book Council of Australia, and have been performed on stage or converted into audio books. Many novels by Higgins are studied as High School English texts by Australian students, and his edgy suspense tales have also been published in Italy (Mondadori Books) and Japan (serialized and illustrated in Asahi Shimbun Magazine). The writer's hobbies include shipwreck diving and the martial art Iaido, in which he has competed at international level. Influences in his work reflect his travels in a number of Asian countries. He is a popular public speaker and teacher of creative writing to students of all age groups.

In September 2007 the first book of Higgins' new trilogy was published. Set in medieval Japan's civil war era, Tomodachi: The Edge of the World (Pulp Fiction Press, Brisbane) is a historical thriller in which the son of an English lord, shipwrecked in feudal Japan, is befriended by a runaway samurai youth.

Higgins is a self-proclaimed psychic, writing books about certain issues which have been known to happen in the future.