If you want to know how to attempt the assassination of a statesman,
track a Nazi war criminal, organise a coup in Africa (or avert one in
Russia), get a false passport, blow up a safe or assemble a bomb
(conventional or nuclear), then this author will be to your taste. But
Frederick Forsyth isn't the writer of a terrorist training manual but of
thrillers whose suspense-laden plots seem ripped from the headlines but
had an uncanny resonance in the real world.
Forsyth's intricate
and detailed plots, meticulously researched background and taut writing -
ensured all his 13 novels were best-sellers - and always in print. His
first three (and fifth) also became successful films (with the plots
intact) - a record only bettered by Ian Fleming (though the James Bond
films hardly reflect the books) or J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter.
Forsyth
(1938-) had a colourful life. The youngest Royal Air Force pilot at 19,
he then switched to journalism - working for newswire Reuters in Paris
and then with the BBC. Sent to report on the Nigerian civil war (the
Biafra conflict) in 1967, he protested the decision to pull him out
after a few months, quit and went back to cover it freelance.
A
book followed but didn't do well. He then wrote his first fiction work -
using experiences of his Paris stint - in a little over a month in
early 1970. "The Day of the Jackal", however, did not interest
publishers who contended that a plot based on assassinating De Gaulle
did not possess any suspense as he was still alive. Only after the
French leader's death - of natural causes - in November 1970 did a
publisher take it. Coming out in mid-1971, it was a runaway hit and went
on to be translated into over 30 languages including Hebrew, Chinese
and Thai.
Taking off from the 1962 assassination attempt, the
battle of wits (and more) between the assassin and the security
apparatus - with a twist at the end (or even earlier in subsequent
works) became Forsyth's style.
The book achieved a strange
notoriety - devoted admirers included two assassins (that of Israeli
Premier Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and the one unsuccessful in targeting US
President George Bush and his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Sakaashvilli
in 2005), as well as giving a nickname to the world's most notorious
terrorist before Osama bin Laden - Carlos the Jackal, based on an
erroneous report that he had a copy of it.
Familiar for those who
have used a Holocaust survivor's anguished last testament in school
elocution competitions, "The Odessa File" (1972) again used a real-life
incident - President Kennedy's assassination - to start the tale of
international intrigue and retribution, meshing the Holocaust, elusive
Nazi war criminals (and growing disinterest in their pursuit), and an
arms race in the Middle East. A consequence was focus on the book's
real-life villain, SS officer Eduard Roschmann, then living in
Argentina, making him flee to remote Paraguay following extradition
requests.
On a tycoon's attempt to suborn an African nation
(Equatorial Guinea in all but name) where a valuable mineral is found (a
plot still relevant in our time), "The Dogs of War" (1974) drew from
Forsyth's own experiences of mercenaries in Biafra. Coincidentally, in
1973, Spanish authorities had arrested several people allegedly planning
a coup in Guinea, while one actually occurred there in 1979 and another
attempt - the preparations mirroring Forsyth's - in 2004.
"The
Devil's Alternative" (1979) deals with moral choices before the world's
most powerful leaders in a crisis (and the subplot of Ukrainian
patriots' antipathy to Russians seems unusually familiar in this era),
while "The Fourth Protocol" (1984) features one of the earliest
instances of state-backed nuclear terrorism (though by a renegade
faction).
"The Negotiator" (1989) was based on a conspiracy to
sabotage an arms treaty between the superpowers (and has Mikhail
Gorbachov in an impressive role), while "The Deceiver" (1991), about
attempts to push out an unconventional intelligence operative, is an
epitaph to the Cold War.
Then came "The Fist of God" (1994) on
Saddam Hussein's weapon programme, "Icon" (1996) set in Russia of 1999,
"The Avenger" (2003), where a private manhunt for Serb war criminal
upsets a mission to capture Bin Laden as the story ends September 10,
2001, "The Afghan" (2006) and "The Kill List" (2013) on terror plots
against the West, and "The Cobra" (2010) on drug-running. But these six -
for me at least - pale before the first seven, possibly due to a
gloomier tone, or the issues suffering over-exposure.
But
Forsyth is not done yet - expected this October is his autobiography
"The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue". Trust the master storyteller to
save the best for the last!
(05.04.2015 - Vikas Datta is an
Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be
contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
