Hank Searls

Hank Searls (born Henry Hunt Searls in 1922) is an American author and screenwriter. His novels include "The Crowded Sky" (1960), which was adapted as a movie with Dana Andrews) and "The Penetrators" (1965, writing as Anthony Gray).

Set in the corridors of power of the USAF's Strategic Air Command "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 movie "Countdown."

Based on his own novel of the same title, Searls wrote the screenplay for the 1978 Angie Dickinson TV movie "Overboard". He wrote a biography of Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. "The Lost Prince: Young Joe, The Forgotten Kennedy." This became the basis of the 1977 TV movie "Young Joe, The Forgotten Kennedy", with Peter Strauss in the title role.

Searls' other military and aviation-themed novels include: "The Astronaut", "Pentagon", "Hero Ship", "The Big X" and "Altitude Zero". He also wrote the novelisations of the movies Jaws 2 and .

External links

*imdb name|0780733
*http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/hank-searls/ Hank Searls' bibliography] at Fantasticfiction.co.uk
*http://www.scifan.com/writers/ss/SearlsHank.asp
* [http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/kamikaze/books/fiction/searls/index.htm "The Hero Ship"] book review