My first impression was Frederick Forsyth is still alive?? remembering him from classics that seemed ancient when I read them decades ago. Think Ian Fleming and James Bond type books. Toast to him though, great talent nevertheless. RIP.
Ach, great writer of operational background stories; his logistical build-up takes up almost the entirety of Dogs of War for instance. Strangely riveting accumulation of preparation notes considering it would probably be unenticing if describing, say, conference planning rather than a military coup!
I'm not sure earlier books like that would pass these days without considerable liberal angst; that one for instance celebrates a certain lost kind of man of action with a brute uncompromising view of the mercenary perspective of the world.
For lovers of intelligent action novels though like me, he's one of those writers I always considered a sure bet when taking a punt with an Audible credit. RIP.
cptnapalm · 26m ago
Dogs of War was good enough for it to be the basis for multiple attempted mercenary led coups. Hoare's in the Seychelles failed because his forces went in by plane instead of boat and met the problems which Forsyth foresaw. Denard's guys (if I remember correctly) were given copies of the book with bookmarks to indicate what to do next.
southernplaces7 · 2h ago
I'll be having a toast to him. The man's character development may have been a bit wooden and even absurd at times, but the procedural descriptions were curiously captivating, and the plots were just wonderful.
Day of The Jackal is a novel I can read again and again across the years without ever getting finally bored of it. Dogs of War is almost as good and The Avenger is wonderful from start to finish, to name just a few praiseworthy examples.
adharmad · 2h ago
Also The Fist of God and Icon, although the ending of Icon is a bit rushed.
Another exciting cold war thriller is the Devil's Alternative.
jcalx · 2h ago
I enjoy his writing style, and particularly his willingness to indulge in paragraphs of dryly humorous details, usually of the technical and operational varieties. For all their flaws, he and a few others (e.g. Alistair MacLean) have a particular flavor of "very competent protagonist relying on their wits and Very Particular Set of Skills" that other authors can't execute quite as well.
bombcar · 1h ago
> very competent protagonist relying on their wits and Very Particular Set of Skills
Writing these characters without creating Mary or Marty Sues is really damn hard.
sherr · 1h ago
If you like this sort of thing, a novel I would heartily recommend is "Kolymsky Heights" by a much neglected (and long dead) author Lionel Davidson.
The Guardian has a short piece from 2014 that describes the plot. Great setup and a particular sort of cultural and linguistic skillset :
"Porter, however, is descended from Canadian Inuits, who remain – physically, ethnically and culturally – virtually identical to their Siberian counterparts, despite the decades-long political rift between the two."
I genuinely hope someone thought to play this when he expired.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGd6CdtOqEE
[1] It took a lot of convincing by my older brother that there book was, indeed, fiction. TBH, even now, I'm pretty certain it was all plausible.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Comebacks
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0287046/
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.frederickforsyth.co...
I'm not sure earlier books like that would pass these days without considerable liberal angst; that one for instance celebrates a certain lost kind of man of action with a brute uncompromising view of the mercenary perspective of the world.
For lovers of intelligent action novels though like me, he's one of those writers I always considered a sure bet when taking a punt with an Audible credit. RIP.
Day of The Jackal is a novel I can read again and again across the years without ever getting finally bored of it. Dogs of War is almost as good and The Avenger is wonderful from start to finish, to name just a few praiseworthy examples.
Another exciting cold war thriller is the Devil's Alternative.
Writing these characters without creating Mary or Marty Sues is really damn hard.
The Guardian has a short piece from 2014 that describes the plot. Great setup and a particular sort of cultural and linguistic skillset :
"Porter, however, is descended from Canadian Inuits, who remain – physically, ethnically and culturally – virtually identical to their Siberian counterparts, despite the decades-long political rift between the two."
From : https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/aug/03/book...
The Fist of God is probably one of my favourites.
(I mean, his early books, I really can't recommend his sequel to, erm, The Phantom of the Opera)