Legendary thriller writer, former spy and Daily Express columnist Freddie Forsyth has died at the age of 86 after a short illness. The author of The Day of The Jackal and The Odessa File, who wrote more than 25 books, passed away at home in Buckinghamshire surrounded by his family.
His long and storied life was every bit as thrilling as the novels that made his name and delighted millions of readers around the world. His meticulous eye for detail, and ability to put readers at the heart of the action, explains why he sold more than 70 million books in more than 30 languages, and had at least 12 of his stories adapted for film, most famously The Day of the Jackal starring Edward Fox as the eponymous assassin hired to kill French president Charles de Gaulle.
Forsyth’s agent Jonathan Lloyd said: “We mourn the passing of one of the world’s greatest thriller writers. Only a few weeks ago I sat with him as we watched a new and moving documentary of his life – In My Own Words, to be released later this year on BBC1 – and was reminded of an extraordinary life, well lived.”
Having completed national service in the RAF, becoming one of its youngest jet pilots, Freddie, as he was universally known, turned to journalism, becoming a foreign correspondent and working in Germany and Russia before being sent by the BBC to African in 1967 to cover the civil war between Nigeria and its eastern province of Biafra.
Forsyth was horrified to discover the conflict was not the small affair portrayed by the Foreign Office and the Labour government of the time, which was supplying arms to Nigeria and denying it.
He was even more disgusted when, after six months, he asked to continue covering the war and was told by the BBC: “It is not our policy to cover this war.” So he quit, flew back out to Africa and stayed for most of the next two years as a freelancer. The experiences would later inform his third novel, The Dogs of War, but it was The Jackal that made his name.
Having returned to London in 1969, he later admitted: “1970 dawned and I had no job, no prospect of a job. I’d been well smeared by the Foreign Office. I had no life savings, no apartment, I was sleeping on the sofa in a friend’s place.”
Left on his own when they went off to work, he said he hit on the “stupid” idea of trying to write a novel and he remembered the idea he had had in Paris. He wrote 12 pages a day for 35 days on his second-hand Empire Aristocrat typewriter.
“I just hawked it from publisher to publisher and got rebuffed by the first four. Then my lucky break.” The Day Of The Jackal, published in 1971, became an international bestseller and gained Forsyth the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel and a further two-book publishing deal, as well as £20,000, then a huge sum, for the film rights.
Born in Kent, the son of a furrier, in 1961 in search of a job on a national newspaper, Forsyth was hired by the Reuters news agency when they learnt he could speak four languages.
He was sent first to Paris, reporting on the Algeria crisis and attempted assassinations of President Charles de Gaulle by the terrorist OAS group which would later give him the idea for The Day Of The Jackal.
Later, he was sent to East Berlin to cover East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia Arrested, bugged and followed by the Stasi.