Books by Frederick Forsyth
Frederick Forsyth (born 1938) is a British thriller writer.
“Frederick Forsyth is the BMW of thriller writers. I always think if you wanted to learn how to make a car you’d get a BMW and take it apart and put it back together again as many times as you needed to work out how they do it. That’s what I think about Forsyth’s thriller writing.” Matt Lynn recommending Great British Thrillers.
“The Day of the Jackal is about Charles de Gaulle and an attempted assassination attempt on him. Forsyth is interested in French history, and the darkness in it. This book is about a real-life right-wing group called the OAS. It was a secret organization, a group of authoritarian army officers, who were trying desperately to hold on to Algeria. They didn’t like the fact that de Gaulle eventually, belatedly, realized that there was no hope of Algeria staying part of metropolitan France. And there was an attempted coup and assassination on him in real life. Forsyth writes this book in what is often described as a documentary or journalistic style…It’s a very interesting book. It’s always longer than you remember and it unfolds over quite some length. Because it’s so tightly written, you forget how much happens in it.” Read more...
Five Classic European Spy Novels
Patrick Worrall, Thriller and Crime Writer
“This book sets the template for the lightening paced thrillers with conspiracies and action, cutting from place to place, information, a kind of gung-ho attitude.” Read more...
The Best Classic British Thrillers
Matt Lynn, Novelist
Interviews where books by Frederick Forsyth were recommended
The Best Classic British Thrillers, recommended by Matt Lynn
Author Matt Lynn says that good thrillers need a sense of foreboding and tension – and a brilliant central character. “The thriller has always been a very political genre, a kind of snapshot in time”
The best books on Nazi Hunters, recommended by Guy Walters
The Times journalist calls Simon Wiesenthal a liar. He’s just not this secular saint that everyone says he is – his memoirs all contradict each other and are at odds with the rest of the evidence
Five Classic European Spy Novels, recommended by Patrick Worrall
From a noir novel by Eric Ambler set in 1930s Europe to some of the great spy thrillers of the post-World War II era, British novelist Patrick Worrall, author of The Exile, talks us through five of his favourite espionage novels.
The best books on Assassinations, recommended by Michael Burleigh
From Julius Caesar to Jamal Khashoggi, assassinations often seem earth-shattering in their consequences. But, as historian Michael Burleigh explains, those consequences are rarely the ones the assassins intended. Here, he recommends the best books on assassinations and the assassins who carry them out, including the role of drones and PR agencies.
The Best Classic Thrillers, recommended by Sam Bourne
The bestselling author tells us how his other job as a political journalist helps with thriller writing, and what makes le Carré, Forsyth and Buchan such masters of their trade
Good Thrillers with Great Movie Adaptations, recommended by James Twining
The elements you need for a perfect thriller are a brilliant central character, some link to reality, and an inanimate object around which the human story revolves, says bestselling thriller writer James Twining. He recommends five good thrillers that have been turned into great movies.
