Happy Birthday: Robert Dennis Harris CBE (born 7 March 1957) is a British novelist and former journalist. Although he began his career in journalism and non-fiction, he is best known for his works of historical fiction. Beginning with the best-seller Fatherland, Harris focused on events surrounding the Second World War, followed by works set in ancient Rome. His later works are varied in settings but are mostly set after 1870.

Several of Harris's novels have been adapted into films, including The Ghost Writer (2010) and An Officer and a Spy (2019), for which he co-wrote the screenplays with director Roman Polanski, and Conclave (2024).

After leaving Cambridge, Harris joined the BBC and worked on news and current affairs programmes such as Panorama and Newsnight. In 1987, at the age of 30, he became political editor of The Observer. He later wrote regular columns for The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph.

Harris co-wrote his first book, A Higher Form of Killing (1982), with fellow BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman: this was a study of chemical and biological warfare. Other non-fiction works followed: Gotcha! The Government, the Media and the Falklands Crisis (1983) covering the Falklands War; The Making of Neil Kinnock (1984), a profile of Kinnock just after he became leader of the Opposition; Selling Hitler (1986), an investigation of the Hitler Diaries scandal; and Good and Faithful Servant (1990), a study of Bernard Ingham, press secretary to Margaret Thatcher while she was prime minister.

[Harris is an auto-buy for me. I've either read or at least own most of his novels including Fatherland (1992), Enigma (1995), Archangel (1998), Pompeii (2003), Imperium (2006), The Ghost (2007), Lustrum (2009), The Fear Index (2011), An Officer and a Spy (2013), Dictator (2015), Conclave (2016), Munich (2017), The Second Sleep (2019), V2 (2020), Act of Oblivion (2022), Precipice (2024), Agrippa (2026). I've enjoyed everything I've read by him with one notable exception. But I haven't let that put me off reading more. I'll just stick to his historical novels!]