Frederick Forsyth Biography

British thriller writer, born in Ashford, Kent; he served in the RAF and worked as a journalist and BBC radio and television reporter. His first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), the account of an attempt to assassinate de Gaulle, was a runaway bestseller. It was innovatory in its use of detailed, factual accounts—closer to journalism than to fiction—of technical procedures and of illegal activity: for example, how to obtain a false British passport. Forsyth employed the same technique in subsequent, less successful novels (The Odessa File, 1972; The Dogs of War, 1974; The Fourth Protocol, 1984), and it has since been much imitated. His novel The Fist of God (1994) has the Gulf War as its subject. He has also written short stories and a novel, The Shepherd (1975). Most of his thrillers have been made into films.