Patrick Alexander (writer)

Patrick Alexander (1926 – 1997^[1] or 2003^[2]) was a British novelist, thriller writer, journalist and screenwriter.

His novel Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal won the Crime Writers' Association "John Creasey Memorial Award"^[3] and was filmed in 1981 as Le Professionnel starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. Stephen Hunter admits that Alexander's novel inspired his own novel Dead Zero and questions where the inspiration ends and the theft of Alexander's idea begins.^[2]

Alexander was a chess fanatic; people in his novels often share his enthusiasm for the game. Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal features a "considerable description of a tournament" that chess player Stewart Reuben had organised.^[4]