Frederick Forsyth wearing a white shirt and dark blue jacket looks at the camera
Frederick Forsyth wrote more than 25 books
Frederick Forsyth, the British author of The Day of the Jackal and other bestselling thrillers, has died after a brief illness, his literary agent said Monday. He was 86.
Jonathan Lloyd, his agent, said Forsyth died at home early Monday surrounded by his family.
“We mourn the passing of one of the world’s greatest thriller writers,” Lloyd said.
Forsyth published more than 25 books, also including The Odessa File and The Dogs of War, and sold 75 million copies around the world, he said.
‘Luck’ played big part in Forsyth’s career
Forsyth’s most famous work was about a fictional assassination attempt on former French President Charles de Gaulle by right-wing extremists 35 days after falling on hard times.
The Jackal went on to be made into a hit film starring Edward Fox as the assassin. A Netflix remake, with Eddie Redmayne in the lead role, was released last year.
Forsyth attributed much of this success to “luck,” recalling how a bullet narrowly missed him while he was covering the bloody Nigerian civil war between 1967 and 1970.
“I have had the most spectacular luck all through my life,” he told British newspaper The Times last November in an interview.
“Right place, right time, right person, right contact, right promotion — and even just turning my head away when that bullet went past,” he said.
