Thriller writer Frederick Forsyth Passes at 86

 

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.

Books: Never Flinch (Holly #4) By Stephen King (2025)

“When the Buckeye City Police Department receives a disturbing letter from a person threatening to ‘kill thirteen innocents and one guilty’ in ‘an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man,’ Detective Izzy Jaynes has no idea what to think. Are fourteen citizens about to be slaughtered in an unhinged act of retribution? As the investigation unfolds, Izzy realizes that the letter writer is deadly serious, and she turns to her friend Holly Gibney for help. Meanwhile, controversial and outspoken women’s rights activist Kate McKay is embarking on a multi-state lecture tour, drawing packed venues of both fans and detractors. Someone who vehemently opposes Kate’s message of female empowerment is targeting her and disrupting her events. At first, no one is hurt, but the stalker is growing bolder, and Holly is hired to be Kate’s bodyguard—a challenging task with a headstrong employer and a determined adversary driven by wrath and his belief in his own righteousness.”

Holly Gibney has grown a lot since her first appearance in Mr. Mercedes. She starts out as shy, mentally ill middle aged women and through various novels and short fiction has developed into a force to be reckoned with. In Never Flinch (likely to be the last tale featuring here, though one never can guess with the prolific King) continues the theme of Holly dealing with unstable, split identity villains. There is a lot of psychological complexity here, as well, which is probably why the detective and procedural fiction does so well. 

A hallmark of King’s works involves issues with the culture wars (probably more so in the 21^st Century than the twentieth), and, as always, addiction and recovery, which threads themselves through out a lot of his tales –something that really dates back to 1974’s Carrie. And then there is the abusive parents, which King seems to love to write about (Trig’s father here, but Holly still hears her late mothers voice every now and then) 

King acknowledges in an afterword that Never Flinch didn’t meet his own expectations for it, saying only that he was “happy enough” with the finished product. That said, it’s not a bad book; it’s enjoyable and very well done. But, as his wife Tabitha said after reading the first draft and told her husband “you can do better”, I felt the book lacked certain strength. The Holly titles are great way to introduce new readers to King, especially the ones turned off by his supernatural horror tales, but for me, Never Flinch never really becomes a great detective tale. It’s a bit predictable, in some cases, dark in other places. But it’s still worth the read.

Books: The Dry (Aaron Falk #1) by Jane Harper

“In the grip of the worst drought in a century, the farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily when three members of a local family are found brutally slain. Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk reluctantly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier. But as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of the Hadler family. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret. A secret Falk thought was long buried. A secret Luke's death now threatens to bring to the surface in this small Australian town, as old wounds bleed into new ones.” 

While The Dry has the familiar set-up common with this genre (prodigal son returns, murder of childhood friend you’ve not seen in decades, bitter old men who hates everyone), the debut novel by Australian author Jane Harper reads like she’s been publishing for a while, as writing and pacing were excellent, and had some fully fleshed characters. 

At its core, it’s a recognizable police procedural more than a whodunit (though it is, and while I kind of figured it out, the reasons were shocking), but because the characters are distinctive and recognizable, you get swept up in their drama. And for a small town deep into the suburbs of Melbourne, it’s got a bunch of secrets and people who seem out of place there. I mean, it’s not an insular place, it welcomes new people, but clearly the secrets the town keeps is just as killing as the drought.

It’s atmospheric and dirty, dusty and dry. It’s dark, and for those who dislike children being killed might be turned off by it, though it’s not really a violent book. Still, it’s a rock-solid debut and great for readers of a slow-burning crime drama. 

There was a film adaptation of this book, released in 2020 (though delayed due to COVID until January 2021) starring Eric Bana and ANDOR’s Genevieve O'Reilly. A huge hit in its own country, the film did modest sales in theaters here in the US before vanishing (I think it’s on NETFLIX now).

Books: Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen (1995)

“Two honeymooners wake up early, make love twice, and brace themselves for a spectacle they won't be watching from the sidelines. A seductive con artist stumbles into a scam that promises more cool cash than the lottery. A shotgun-toting mobile home salesman is about to close a deal with disaster. A law school dropout will be chasing one Gaboon viper, a troop of storm-shocked monkeys, and a newfound love life, while tourists by the thousands bail from the Florida Keys. We're now entering the hurricane zone, where hell and hilarity rule.”

As a columnist for the Miami Herald, once again Hiaasen used his knowledge of reporting on the storm to highlight the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in South Florida for this novel. (It’s never named, the storm, by the way, but this book was released in 1995. The the storm happened in 1992, and features an unnamed Republican president that is probably George Bush, Sr.) It seems the aftermath of Hurricane turned out to be fertile ground for real-life corruption and incompetence in the construction industry and local and state governments. Hiaasen wrote several scathing columns about it, where he derided the industry's and government's apologists for describing Andrew as "the storm of the century," which seemed designed to excuse them from their own ineptitude by exaggerating the force of the hurricane.

As for the novel, it’s features (what I’ve learned only in reading handful of his titles) Hiaasen's usual formula: a confused female victim of the greedy jerk rescued by the "crazy" recluse and the caring, law-enforcement hero, along with some preachiness on greed, environmental protection, with a despicable villain (of which they’re many) named Snapper. It’s a good theme, I guess, and it’s clear only liberals will enjoy the tale. I mean none of the characters are without fault; all appear very easily swayed in breaking the law for a large payoff. Yeah, at times it was hard to care for any of them, even if most of them were cartoonish in nature. It also features the third appearance of Skink, AKA, former Governor Clinton Tyree, and Jim Tile, who both previously appeared in Double Whammy and Native Tongue.

Still, despite being a bit overlong, Hiaasen is a very clever writer with a twisted and dark sense of humor. In Stormy Weather, it almost works, because as you read, you take in the satire and how all the plot threads come somewhat together, but the author had an ax to grind and he takes no prisoners when pointing out corruption that seems live within the mud of Florida.