Frederick McCarthy Forsyth CBE (born 25 August 1938) is an English novelist and journalist. He is 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, The Cobra and The Kill List.
Forsyth's works frequently appear on best-sellers lists and more than a dozen of his titles have been adapted to film. By 2006, he had sold more than 70 million books in more than 30 languages.
Before becoming a journalist, Forsyth completed his National Service in the Royal Air Force as a pilot where he flew the de Havilland Vampire.He joined Reuters in 1961 and later the BBC in 1965, where he served as an assistant diplomatic correspondent.
Forsyth reported on his early activities as a journalist. His early career was spent covering French affairs and the attempted assassination of Charles de Gaulle. He had never been to what he termed "black Africa" until reporting on the Nigerian Civil War between Biafra and Nigeria as a BBC correspondent.[6] He was there for the first six months of 1967, but few expected the war to last very long considering the poor weaponry and preparation of the Biafrans when compared to the British-armed Nigerians. After his six months were over, however, Forsyth – eager to carry on reporting – approached the BBC to ask if he could have more time there. He noted their response:
I was told quite bluntly, then, 'it is not our policy to cover this war.' This was a period when the Vietnam War was front-page headlines almost every day, regarded broadly as an American cock-up, and this particularly British cock-up in Nigeria was not going to be covered. I smelt news management. I don't like news management. So I made a private vow to myself: 'you may, gentlemen, not be covering it, but I'm going to cover it.' So I quit and flew out there, and stayed there for most of the next two years.
He thus returned to Biafra as a freelance reporter, writing his first book, The Biafra Story, in 1969.
In August 2015 Forsyth revealed that in Biafra he was an informant for MI6, a relationship that continued for 20 years. He claimed he was not paid.
He is an occasional radio broadcaster on political issues, and has also written for newspapers throughout his career, including a weekly page in the Daily Express. In 2003, he criticised "gay-bashers in the churches" in The Guardian newspaper.[9] He has narrated several documentaries, including Jesus Christ Airlines, Soldiers: A History of Men in Battle and I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life & Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal.
Can you forgive the past?
It's 1963 and a young German reporter has been assigned the suicide of a holocaust survivor. The news story seems straighforward, this is a tragic insight into one man's suffering. But a long hidden secret is discovered in
Publisher: Arrow Books
An astonishing discovery is made in the remote African republic of Zangaro, one which could change the course of a nation's history forever. But such a discovery cannot be kept secret for long and Sir James Manson will stop at nothing to protect this
Publisher: Arrow Books
A WAR WITHOUT END
Cocaine is worth billions of dollars a year to the drug cartels who spread their evil seed across Western society. It causes incalculable misery, poverty and death. And slowly, gradually, its power is spreading...
A MAN ON A MISSI
Publisher: Arrow Books
Plan Aurora, hatched in a remote dacha in the forest outside Moscow and initiated with relentless brilliance and skill, is a plan within a plan that, in its spine-chilling ingenuity, breaches the ultra-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that
Publisher: CornerStone
During those fateful weeks before Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, a fragment of radio intercept had referred to Qubth-ut-Allah, a devastating secret weapon that could rain death and destruction on the Allied forces.
Despite Allied scepticism, M
Publisher: Transworld Publishers
One of the most celebrated thrillers ever written, The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of the struggle to catch a killer before it's too late.
It is 1963 and an anonymous Englishman has been hired by the Operations Chief of the O.A.S. to
Publisher: CornerStone
An astonishing discovery is made in the remote African republic of Zangaro, one which could change the course of a nation's history forever. But such a discovery cannot be kept secret for long and Sir James Manson will stop at nothing to protect this
Publisher: Arrow Books
Plan Aurora, hatched in a remote dacha in the forest outside Moscow and initiated with relentless brilliance and skill, is a plan within a plan that, in its spine-chilling ingenuity, breaches the ultra-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that
Publisher: CornerStone
In northern Virginia, a secret agency named TOSA (Technical Operations Support Activity) has one mission: to track, find, and kill those so dangerous to the United States that they are on a short, very close-held document known as the Kill List.
Now
Publisher: Corgi Books
