James Jackson

Author of the Best Selling Books Pilgrim & Blood Rock

In Brief

James Alexander Heitz Jackson was born in London on 28th November 1962, son of industrialist and biochemist D.Dr Helmuth Edhardt Heitz, whose companies Heitz Biochemical Industries and Allied Laboratories pioneered pharmaceutical developments in nutritional supplements and pain control, and Lucy Jackson, author of numerous books on movement and fitness, who has developed theories on maintaining fitness in pregnancy and early motherhood. His step-father, Ian Jackson, was an eminent Harley Street gynaecologist and obstetrician who served in the Parachute Regiment in World War II and parachuted into Normandy in 1944.

Jackson’s ancestors include Victorian surgeon and pathologist, Thomas Bond, the world’s first criminal profiler, who conducted autopsies on Jack the Ripper’s victims and wrote the world’s first psychological profile of the murderer.

Jackson was educated at Cheam School and Wellington College, Berkshire, before going to Bristol University to read politics, and, later, King’s College, London, for war studies. He subsequently attended the London College of Law, and the Inns of Court School of Law, and was called to the Bar in 1995. He is a Member of the Inner Temple.

He has written numerous contemporary and historical thrillers, including Dead Headers, Cold Cut, Blood Rock, and Perdition, and is also co-presenter of the podcast Bloody Violent History. Its aim is to show history as a continuum across millennia, and covers such subjects as civil war, Special Forces, secret intelligence and despotism.

Jackson’s contemporary techno-thrillers were written as a warning of things to come. Dead Headers (published November 1997) predicted the emergence of international mass terrorism and attacks on New York and Paris. Cold Cut (published November 1999, just as Vladimir Putin came to power) envisaged the head of the KGB becoming Russian president and returning his country to a Stalinist past by creating numerous crises both within and outside the nation’s borders. The Reaper (published September 2001, at the same moment as 9/11) portrayed a terrorist chief attempting to bring forward the day of judgement by mounting apocalyptic terrorist acts around the globe.

His historical thrillers range from a series with crusader themes – Pilgrim, Perdition, Penance – through to the Elizabethan/Jacobean secret agent Christian Hardy who fights England’s enemies in books such as Blood Rock, Realm, Treason, and Cradle.

Jackson has also written non-fiction works including The Counter-Terrorist Handbook, a practical guide for those at risk or travelling in potentially high-risk environments overseas.

For many years Jackson was a Political Risk and Defence consultant and contributed to Jane’s Defence Weekly, Jane’s Intelligence Review, and the Royal United Services Institute Year Book.

Jackson has written features for national newspapers and contributed to radio and television broadcasts on matters of terrorism, defence, and international security.

He has worked with Frederick Forsyth (among others). Forsyth rewarded him by giving the hero in The Kill List (Forsyth’s ///thriller) the cover name ‘James Jackson’.

Jackson is also a writer and creator of short films, including Wall Banger, Bad Busker, and Jump.

Jackson has the genetic eye disease Retinitis Pigmentosa and is now profoundly blind.

Publications

Fiction

  • Cradle (2017)
  • Treason (2016)
  • Perdition (2012)
  • Realm (2010)
  • Pilgrim (2008)
  • Blood Rock (2007)
  • The Reaper (2001)
  • Cold Cut (1999)
  • Dead Headers (1997)
  • Höllenfeuer (2020)
  • Penance (2019)
  • Endkampf (2019)
  • The Race (2018)

Non-Fiction

  • The Counter-Terrorist Handbook (2005)