Veteran British thriller novelist Frederick Forsyth has passed away at the age of 86. A former correspondent for Reuters and the BBC, as well as an informant for Britain's MI6 foreign spy agency, he penned the bestselling novel The Day of the Jackal and The Dogs of War.
Forsyth said in his memoir that he “never wanted to be a writer,” but by the late 1960s, he was "skint, stony broke." According to him, as a boy, he wanted to be "a fighter jock," and when he traded his career in the RAF for journalism, it was "to see the world" as a foreign and war correspondent.
Still, his first book, 1971s The Day of the Jackal, suddenly made the once poor journalist into a wealthy writer of fiction. The novel was about an English assassin, who is hired by French paramilitaries angry at de Gaulle's withdrawal from Algeria. Written in just 35 days, the book was rejected by a host of publishers who worried that the story was flawed and would not sell as de Gaulle had not been assassinated. Nevertheless, Forsyth's hurricane-paced thriller, complete with journalistic-style detail and brutal sub-plots of lust, betrayal and murder was an instant hit.
The hugely successful movie version was released in 1973, starring Edward Fox, while a reimaged, more contemporary long-form TV version was done in 2024 from for Universal’s Peacock streaming network. That adaptation, starring Eddie Redmayne, was recently picked-up for a second season.
Other notable releases include The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Fist of God, and No Comebacks.
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