Frederick Forsyth, the British author of \u201cThe Day of the Jackal\u201d and other bestselling thrillers, has died after a brief illness, his literary agent said Monday. He was 86. <\/p>\n
Jonathan Lloyd, his agent, said Forsyth died at home early Monday surrounded by his family. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe mourn the passing of one of the world\u2019s greatest thriller writers,\u201d Lloyd said. <\/p>\n
Born in Kent, in southern England, in 1938, Forsyth served as a Royal Air Force pilot before becoming a foreign correspondent. He covered the attempted assassination of French President Charles de Gaulle in 1962, which provided inspiration for \u201cThe Day of the Jackal,\u201d his bestselling political thriller about a professional assassin. <\/p>\n
Published in 1971, the book propelled him into global fame. It was made into a film in 1973 starring Edward Fox as the Jackal and more recently a television series starring Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch. <\/p>\n
In 2015, Forsyth 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. <\/p>\n
Although Forsyth said he did other jobs for the agency, he said he was not paid for his services and \u201cit was hard to say no\u201d to officials seeking information. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe zeitgeist was different,\u201d he told the BBC. \u201cThe Cold War was very much on.\u201d <\/p>\n
He wrote more than 25 books including \u201cThe Afghan,\u201d \u201cThe Kill List,\u201d \u201cThe Dogs of War\u201d and \u201cThe Fist of God\u201d that have sold over 75 million copies, Lloyd said. <\/p>\n
His publisher, Bill Scott-Kerr, said that \u201cRevenge of Odessa,\u201d a sequel to the 1974 book \u201cThe Odessa File\u201d that Forsyth worked on with fellow thriller author Tony Kent, will be published in August. <\/p>\n
\u201cStill read by millions across the world, Freddie\u2019s thrillers define the genre and are still the benchmark to which contemporary writers aspire,\u201d Scott-Kerr said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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