Frederick Forsyth, His Novels and Me
Last month we lost one of the greatest post-war British novelists, Frederick Forsyth. He was also one of my all-time favourite authors and has been for almost forty years. I first became aware of Frederick Forsyth’s work through the film adaptations of his novels The Day of the Jackal and The Dogs of War. They were popular television fair during the late 1970s / early 1980s and would often be shown in the late evening slot on weekends and Bank Holidays. They were good, solid, exciting films, and I would always try and catch them whenever they were shown. But it wasn’t until a few years later – somewhere around 1988 – when I read my first Forsyth novel. I had a friend who, like me, was an avid reader and had recently been turned on to political thrillers and Cold War technothrillers by his father, and it was this friend who would, in turn, infect me with the same love for these genres. My mate had built up an extensive collection of books by Tom Clancy, James Clavell, Craig Thomas...
