John Fenwick Blackburn (born Northumberland, 26 June 1923; died 1993) was a British novelist who wrote thrillers, horror novels, and The Flame and the Wind (1967), an unusual historical novel set in Roman times, in which a nephew of Pontius Pilate tries to discover the facts about the crucifixion of Jesus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Blackburn_%28author%29