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 served as a Royal Air Force pilot before becoming a foreign correspondent and a novelist. In 2015, he told the BBC that he had also worked for the British intelligence agency MI6 for many years, starting from when he covered a civil war in Nigeria in the 1960s.
“The Day of the Jackal,” published in 1971, propelled him into global fame. The political thriller about a professional assassin was made into a film in 1973 and more recently a television series starring Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch.
He wrote more than 25 books including “The Afghan,” “The Kill List,” “The Dogs of War” and “The Fist of God” that have sold over 75 million copies, Lloyd said.
His publisher, Bill Scott-Kerr, said that “Revenge of Odessa,” a sequel to the 1974 book “The Odessa File” that Forsyth worked on with fellow thriller author Tony Kent, will be published in August.
