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The Novels: The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Dogs of War
Frederick Forsyth, né dans le Kent en 1938, a toujours été un homme d'action. Engagé à 18 ans comme pilote dans la R.A.F., il entame ensuite une brillante carrière de reporter. À moins de 30 ans, il est le seul correspondant occidental admis à Berlin-Est. Du journaliste, il garde l'efficacité. Un style rapide, incisif. Un regard abrupt et sans complaisance. Mais il n'oublie pas l'émotion, qui fait coïncider l'Histoire présente, la nôtre, avec la vaste fresque des destinées individuelles. Chacal met en scène un attentat contre le Général de Gaulle. Le Dossier Odessa, un complot d'anciens S.S. contre Israël. Les Chiens de guerre, un commando de mercenaires renversant un président africain. Derrière ces soubresauts politiques se cachent des haines, des idéaux ou de sordides intérêts : la violence d'une époque. Dans ces trois romans, Frederick Forsyth en dévoile les rouages, non en simple chroniqueur, mais en écrivain authentique. Il reste le maître d'un genre littéraire de plus en plus prisé, auquel il a su donner ses lettres de noblesse.
788 pages, Hardcover
First published August 28, 1978
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About the author
Frederick Forsyth
334 books4,300 followersFrederick Forsyth, CBE was a English author and occasional political commentator. He was best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger, The Afghan, and more recently, The Cobra and The Kill List.
The son of a furrier, he was born in Ashford, Kent, educated at Tonbridge School and later attended the University of Granada. He became one of the youngest pilots in the Royal Air Force at 19, where he served on National Service from 1956 to 1958. Becoming a journalist, he joined Reuters in 1961 and later the BBC in 1965, where he served as an assistant diplomatic correspondent. From July to September 1967, he served as a correspondent covering the Nigerian Civil War between the region of Biafra and Nigeria. He left the BBC in 1968 after controversy arose over his alleged bias towards the Biafran cause and accusations that he falsified segments of his reports. Returning to Biafra as a freelance reporter, Forsyth wrote his first book, The Biafra Story in 1969.
Forsyth decided to write a novel using similar research techniques to those used in journalism. His first full length novel, The Day of the Jackal, was published in 1971 and became an international bestseller and gained its author the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. It was later made into a film of the same name.
The son of a furrier, he was born in Ashford, Kent, educated at Tonbridge School and later attended the University of Granada. He became one of the youngest pilots in the Royal Air Force at 19, where he served on National Service from 1956 to 1958. Becoming a journalist, he joined Reuters in 1961 and later the BBC in 1965, where he served as an assistant diplomatic correspondent. From July to September 1967, he served as a correspondent covering the Nigerian Civil War between the region of Biafra and Nigeria. He left the BBC in 1968 after controversy arose over his alleged bias towards the Biafran cause and accusations that he falsified segments of his reports. Returning to Biafra as a freelance reporter, Forsyth wrote his first book, The Biafra Story in 1969.
Forsyth decided to write a novel using similar research techniques to those used in journalism. His first full length novel, The Day of the Jackal, was published in 1971 and became an international bestseller and gained its author the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. It was later made into a film of the same name.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 5, 2016
The Day of The Jackal: -
Few sources could have let the world outside know about the various factors as far as people not involved with then diplomatic or political world involved, about the attempts on life of De Gaulle, a national hero of France since the end of wwII, and about the general displeasure about Algerian independence in various circles in France. It was electrifying in how much one learns from this tale set in the sixties in France.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010.
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The Odessa File:-
One of the most difficult books to write about even with superlatives.
Forsyth delves into the wwII and Germany as it then was, diving in straight from the time he wrote it, with a witness who lived only for the sake of testifying at the trial of a criminal only to find out that the criminals, the nazis and the ss, are in fact not only living and doing fine but will never be tried much less punished.
His - the surviving witness's - suicide, and the discovery of his diary that is then handed over to a reporter, starts the story and brings us to the organisation that was formed to protect precisely those criminals, ODESSA.
Forsyth does not go into why they were successful in surviving and doing well, and perhaps he did not then know, perhaps it was not then known to too many, but which now is known well enough to be aired on information channels.
Complicity and convenience of US authorities who needed to spy on the newly ex-allies, the Russians, and therefore allowed the Germans to do what suited them in exchange for the spying. Germans in turn made up vastly exaggerated reports that were largely responsible for US obsession with arms race escalation and impoverishment of not only much of the world but also of people of US.
Saturday, October 18, 2008.
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......................................................................................
The Dogs of War:-
Mystery thriller with a background of revolution in an African nation.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008.
..........................................................
Africa and Asia - well, all other continents - have been the playground for Europe with their residents given scarcely a thought and their rights, forget it. This is all the more so when it comes to mineral or other wealth of those continents. Business of Europe is of supreme importance and less so only compared to interests of aristocracy or royalties of those nations of Europe that have them, and even then only if they are alert to being taken in by business.
So when it is a small nation of Africa with abominable status in every way one could think of, as of the time line of the story, that is, when most of Asia and Africa is either independent or looking forward to it or struggling towards it, certainly a businessman who has accidentally come across information about tremendously rich mineral deposits of the said small African nation is not going to stop short of murder and coup and take over of the nation in name of a civil war in that nation which in reality is mercenaries sent by him so he could put up a dummy of his choice. To that end he bribes the scientist to shred his real report and one realises the scientist's daughter being handicapped perhaps saved his life - else he might have refused to sell his integrity and been straight murdered and been written off as accident.
Then there is the matter of the mercenaries. Africa has been overrun by them across the continent, and they are from Europe, and know Africa and can assess the situation and do the job for a price he can well afford, with competence and without fleecing him. So he and his chosen underlings are content to play their part and sit back until they can take the place over.
What they do not count on is that some of these mercenaries care not only for their own lives but for one another, and that includes more than skin colour, and beyond the comrades in arms from Africa. There are those that care for Africa itself - and what is more most of them do, more than they care for rich businessmen of Europe. So instead of selling the poor nation with hidden wealth to the men who plan to take it away and not care a whit for the poor of Africa, they put in place a plan all their own, with a man who would be good for the poor nation and men who would serve him and grow in numbers enough to guarantee he shall survive and rule and do well by the tiny nation.
The mineral here is platinum. But the story could have been about diamonds, only, that story went in favour of the rich businessmen of Europe.
But the heart rending part is the description of the nation of Zangaro with the abominable state of affairs which could have been better if only someone had cared before the band of mercenaries did, and the heart rending part is not that it can happen in a small nation of a poor continent, but that one suspects it is so in most of the continent, or major parts anyway.
The description here is all too real one fears, and not in a small measure due to Europe running away after exploiting the various nations of the continents and then leaving with the convenient excuse of giving in to demands of independence, instead of facing a mirror and asking if it is not selfish to leave after taking what they could and long before they could empower the populations of the subjugated nations to rule with education and culture of civil administration.
Not for nothing have millions starved through the continent even as the rich world keeps enjoying everything it can provide, from diamonds to coffee to cocoa to vegetables fresh for tables of Europe, while lands in Europe grow wines too expensive for any poor and flowers for perfumes more or less equally expensive, and other rich nations of other continents across oceans do no less.
Friday, March 21, 2014.
......................................................................................
......................................................................................
Few sources could have let the world outside know about the various factors as far as people not involved with then diplomatic or political world involved, about the attempts on life of De Gaulle, a national hero of France since the end of wwII, and about the general displeasure about Algerian independence in various circles in France. It was electrifying in how much one learns from this tale set in the sixties in France.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010.
......................................................................................
......................................................................................
The Odessa File:-
One of the most difficult books to write about even with superlatives.
Forsyth delves into the wwII and Germany as it then was, diving in straight from the time he wrote it, with a witness who lived only for the sake of testifying at the trial of a criminal only to find out that the criminals, the nazis and the ss, are in fact not only living and doing fine but will never be tried much less punished.
His - the surviving witness's - suicide, and the discovery of his diary that is then handed over to a reporter, starts the story and brings us to the organisation that was formed to protect precisely those criminals, ODESSA.
Forsyth does not go into why they were successful in surviving and doing well, and perhaps he did not then know, perhaps it was not then known to too many, but which now is known well enough to be aired on information channels.
Complicity and convenience of US authorities who needed to spy on the newly ex-allies, the Russians, and therefore allowed the Germans to do what suited them in exchange for the spying. Germans in turn made up vastly exaggerated reports that were largely responsible for US obsession with arms race escalation and impoverishment of not only much of the world but also of people of US.
Saturday, October 18, 2008.
......................................................................................
......................................................................................
The Dogs of War:-
Mystery thriller with a background of revolution in an African nation.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008.
..........................................................
Africa and Asia - well, all other continents - have been the playground for Europe with their residents given scarcely a thought and their rights, forget it. This is all the more so when it comes to mineral or other wealth of those continents. Business of Europe is of supreme importance and less so only compared to interests of aristocracy or royalties of those nations of Europe that have them, and even then only if they are alert to being taken in by business.
So when it is a small nation of Africa with abominable status in every way one could think of, as of the time line of the story, that is, when most of Asia and Africa is either independent or looking forward to it or struggling towards it, certainly a businessman who has accidentally come across information about tremendously rich mineral deposits of the said small African nation is not going to stop short of murder and coup and take over of the nation in name of a civil war in that nation which in reality is mercenaries sent by him so he could put up a dummy of his choice. To that end he bribes the scientist to shred his real report and one realises the scientist's daughter being handicapped perhaps saved his life - else he might have refused to sell his integrity and been straight murdered and been written off as accident.
Then there is the matter of the mercenaries. Africa has been overrun by them across the continent, and they are from Europe, and know Africa and can assess the situation and do the job for a price he can well afford, with competence and without fleecing him. So he and his chosen underlings are content to play their part and sit back until they can take the place over.
What they do not count on is that some of these mercenaries care not only for their own lives but for one another, and that includes more than skin colour, and beyond the comrades in arms from Africa. There are those that care for Africa itself - and what is more most of them do, more than they care for rich businessmen of Europe. So instead of selling the poor nation with hidden wealth to the men who plan to take it away and not care a whit for the poor of Africa, they put in place a plan all their own, with a man who would be good for the poor nation and men who would serve him and grow in numbers enough to guarantee he shall survive and rule and do well by the tiny nation.
The mineral here is platinum. But the story could have been about diamonds, only, that story went in favour of the rich businessmen of Europe.
But the heart rending part is the description of the nation of Zangaro with the abominable state of affairs which could have been better if only someone had cared before the band of mercenaries did, and the heart rending part is not that it can happen in a small nation of a poor continent, but that one suspects it is so in most of the continent, or major parts anyway.
The description here is all too real one fears, and not in a small measure due to Europe running away after exploiting the various nations of the continents and then leaving with the convenient excuse of giving in to demands of independence, instead of facing a mirror and asking if it is not selfish to leave after taking what they could and long before they could empower the populations of the subjugated nations to rule with education and culture of civil administration.
Not for nothing have millions starved through the continent even as the rich world keeps enjoying everything it can provide, from diamonds to coffee to cocoa to vegetables fresh for tables of Europe, while lands in Europe grow wines too expensive for any poor and flowers for perfumes more or less equally expensive, and other rich nations of other continents across oceans do no less.
Friday, March 21, 2014.
......................................................................................
......................................................................................
December 11, 2016
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth made a huge impression on my young mind. I read the book while still in my teens and fell in love with the idea of spies and assassins and political intrigue. The author uses the real-life attempt on the life of the French President Charles de Gaulle in 1962 to write a novel about an unnamed English assassin hired to kill de Gaulle by members of the OAS, a militant right-wing group who believe him to be a traitor to France.
The story goes into great detail about how the Jackal was hired and all the preparations and studies he does to make the job a success. Meanwhile a detective in France, Claude Lebel, and another one in England, Bryn Thomas, are tasked by the highest levels of authorities to track down and stop the assassin before he completes his mission.
Forsyth, F. (1971). The day of the Jackal. Viking Press: New York.
The story goes into great detail about how the Jackal was hired and all the preparations and studies he does to make the job a success. Meanwhile a detective in France, Claude Lebel, and another one in England, Bryn Thomas, are tasked by the highest levels of authorities to track down and stop the assassin before he completes his mission.
Forsyth, F. (1971). The day of the Jackal. Viking Press: New York.
June 8, 2020
In order of quality
Odessa File
Day of the Jackal
Dogs of War
Odessa File
Day of the Jackal
Dogs of War
December 22, 2020
A fantastic trilogy, each better than the other.
July 24, 2007
Just as good as Odessa File...
November 16, 2007
All three are great action stories that still appeal.
October 15, 2012
Top Ten Shelf
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews