Frederick Forsyth, the bestselling novelist who drew on his experiences as a journalist and a Cold War intelligence asset to reshape the modern thriller, has died aged 86.
Famed for his forensic attention to detail and gripping plots, Forsyth redefined the genre with books such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, and The Dogs of War. His works, infused with the authority of lived experience and painstaking research, sold over 75 million copies worldwide.
Born in Kent in the UK in 1938, Forsyth served as a fighter pilot during his national service. When the Royal Air Force couldn’t guarantee him a flying role, he set out to explore the world instead, beginning a journalism career that would soon take him to global flashpoints.
He got his first big break at Reuters when, thanks to a colleague's sudden illness, he was flown to Paris. There, in the early 1960s, he reported on mounting tensions as right-wing militants plotted against President Charles de Gaulle for his decision to grant Algeria independence. Forsyth would later recall asking De Gaulle’s bodyguards about the likelihood of a successful assassination. When a friend asked whether such a plot could work, Forsyth replied, “Only by an outsider. An assassin with no name, no face, no record. And a professional.” That remark planted the seed for The Day of the Jackal.
Forsyth later worked for the BBC, and in 1967 was posted to Nigeria to cover the Biafran war. He arrived just after the federal government invaded the secessionist region, and reported on what he saw, contradicting the official British line. His unflinching dispatches angered the British Government and led to his recall by the BBC.
Frustrated by the BBC’s unwillingness to challenge British government policy, Forsyth resigned and returned to Biafra in 1968 as a freelance reporter. There, he helped expose the devastating famine and quietly began a long relationship with MI6. Though he denied being a spy, Forsyth later admitted in his 2015 memoir The Outsider that he served as a British intelligence “asset” for over two decades.
When the war ended in late 1969, Forsyth came back to Britain with no money, no job, and no prospects. Desperate, he turned to fiction. “I hit on the most no-hope-in-hell way of making some [money]: write a novel,” he later said. Drawing on his Paris experience, he wrote The Day of the Jackal in just 35 days. The novel’s blend of plausible detail and taut suspense redefined the thriller. When it was published in 1971, The Guardian called it “chilling” and “superbly researched”, adding: “Or is it fiction?” The book became an instant international bestseller and was adapted into a successful film in 1973.
His follow-up, The Odessa File (1972), featured a young German journalist on the trail of a Nazi war criminal. Despite mixed reviews, it too became a bestseller and film.
Forsyth’s writing process became methodical: six months of research followed by a few intense weeks of writing. For The Dogs of War (1974), about mercenaries staging a coup in a fictional African state, Forsyth investigated the illegal arms trade in Hamburg. When an arms dealer recognised him, he was warned to leave immediately. He grabbed his passport and money, dashed to the station, and leapt aboard a departing train with seconds to spare.
Over the decades, Forsyth’s thrillers tackled subjects from nuclear proliferation to drug trafficking, Islamic extremism and global espionage. An unapologetic political commentator, he was a vocal critic of Tony Blair, sceptical of climate change, and a committed Brexiteer, serving as a patron of the group Better Off Out.
Despite repeated claims that he was retiring, Forsyth continued writing. “I am slightly mercenary,” he admitted. “I write for money.” Yet he kept returning to the typewriter and eventually published more than 25 books.
The Fox was Forsyth's last novel. His literary agent, Jonathan Lloyd, said he last saw Forsyth a few weeks ago to watch a forthcoming BBC documentary on his life. “It reminded me of an extraordinary life, well lived,” he said.