Day of the Jackal [Hardcover]

Frederick Forsyth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1992

It is 1963 and the Secret Army Organisation want to kill General de Gaulle, the President of France. They hire a professional assassin, a tall, cold Englishman who calls himself aA A the Jackal'. But in spite of his brilliant disguises and clever preparations, aA A the best detective in France', Claude Lebel is close on his heels. A blockbusting novel from one of the world's greatest thriller writers. This will enthral you from start to finish! Also a gripping film starring Edward Fox.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

After the advent of the spy novel, it was Forsyth who 're-internationalized' the thriller and reintroduced the broad political background missing since John Buchan. The Day of the Jackal triumphantly makes us empathize with a cold-blooded assassin, and believe in the possibility of his success in killing de Gaulle, even when we know Le General died in his bed! --Kirkus Reviews, United Kingdom

Compelling, utterly enthralling....Some of the tensest thriller writing I can remember reading. --Sunday Express (London)

A masterpiece tour de force of crisp, sharp, suspenseful writing. --Wall Street Journal --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

From the Publisher

The Jackal. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world's most heavily guarded man.

One man with a rifle who can change the course of history. One man whose mission is so secretive not even his employers know his name. And as the minutes count down to the final act of execution, it seems that there is no power on earth that can stop the Jackal.

"The Day Of The Jackal makes such comparable books that The Manchurian Candidate and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold seems like Hardy Boy mysteries." -- The New York Times --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks (February 1992)
• ISBN-10: 9993677337
• ISBN-13: 978-9993677338
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (150 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,382,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Frederick Forsyth is the author of fifteen novels and short-story collections. He lives in England.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best adventure/espionage thriller ever, March 9, 2000

By 

Joseph Longa "Captain 5ensible" (Southbury, CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Day of the Jackal (Mass Market Paperback)

Day of the Jackal is not just Frederick Forsyth's best book; it's the best book in it's genre. A political killer code-named "The Jackal" is hired to assassinate Charles De Gaulle, president of France. He is the best, not appearing on any police file. But through one small twist of fate, the French authorities learn of this plot, and set Claude Lebel, their best detective to find The Jackal. From there, the race is on, and Forsyth gives the reader front-row seats. He has created a sizzling rivalry between the cold-blooded assassin and the one policeman talented enough to stop him, and the suspense never lets up. Through deception, betrayal, and luck, Lebel tracks the killer throughout Europe, ending in the climactic assassination attempt itself. Based on true events, the obvious outcome doesn't take away from the thrill of the chase. This is the book that set the standard for others to try and follow

68 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Frederick's Foresight, August 24, 2004

By 

Bill Slocum (Norwalk, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Day of the Jackal (Mass Market Paperback)

"The Day Of The Jackal" features a plot you know is going to fail, a protagonist who you never know much about other than he's up to no good, and a henpecked hero looked upon with contempt by most of his superiors. The Bond lovers who made up this novel's key audience back in 1971 must have scratched their heads. But they kept reading. So will you.

Ian Fleming had his James Bond take on outsized supervillains in blurry circumstances that only slightly approximated real life. Forsyth took Fleming's Anglo love for the good life and attention to how-things-work detail, and transported it to a real-life setting, part travelogue, part "what-if" hypothesis. He named real people, used real issues, and presented in utterly passionless style a story that sells you on its utter verisimilitude.

Forsyth doesn't go much for humor: a trip by the assassin Jackal to a gay bar is about the closest to a chuckle we get; a politically incorrect one to be sure. He throws in some nice descriptions: "The heat lay on the city like an illness, crawling into every fibre, sapping strength, energy, the will to do anything but lie in a cool room with the jalousies closed and the fan full on." But for a first-time fiction author, Forsyth isn't trying to sell you on his lyrical brilliance. He just moves you from one scene to another with minimum fuss, a deeper brilliance given he was a struggling writer with no track record with this sort of thing.

Spy fiction was never the same after "Day Of The Jackal" came out. It became less a thing of fantasy, more a thing of life, because Forsyth proved that such an approach not only could work but work better than the Fleming approach. Even the movies' Bond adapted to it over time, for better or worse.

One thing not talked about much that first-time readers will likely get is "Day Of The Jackal" is at times a brutal book, unsparing in its detailing of government-directed torture, of casual murder, of the mass of luckless shadow people with their missing limbs and mildewed medals in which evildoers are able to move, unobserved by the hoi polloi. Reading it for the first time in boarding school, I was taken aback at how harsh a world I lived in, that things like this could go on. Read today, after 9/11, it's almost quaint in that respect. But it's never a nice book. In fact, the casual nastiness is part of its perverse charm.

First and last, this is a ripping good yarn, well told with a wealth of lived-in detail. You get the feeling Forsyth, struggling as he was, traveled every yard of the Jackal's long trail before setting it all down. It's not the only great book Forsyth wrote, "The Odessa File" came a year later, and he's shown flashes of his old form in the decades since. But "The Day Of The Jackal" began the art of spy fiction as we know it today; more than 30 years on, it's still the gold standard.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true classic, January 29, 2001

By 

Mr. Ian C. Kemp - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Day of the Jackal (Mass Market Paperback)

What can I add to 69 other reviewers? Simply this; I first read the book 25 years ago, and I still regularly take it back down off the shelves and dip into some part that jogs my memory, and enjoy savouring the detail afresh, as with a great piece of classical music or a Jane Austen novel. I am not normally a reader of thrillers; but this is equally much a great detective story and a mind game, and the writing style and the language are also superb, as is the evocation of the French setting. It starts quite slowly but accelerates all the way to the end. It is fascinating to compare it with the great 1973 film (NOT the Bruce Willis version). Scenes from the film like the final assassination attempt create an even more vivid picture in the mind as you read the book again. On the other hand, the detail of the planning, or the moment of Lebel's realisation of how the Jackal has got a gun through the apparently impregnable police screen, or seeing how all the different threads of the storyline fit together, can only be captured in the book. Every word and every nuance count at the climactic moments. Read the book, then see the film, then read the book again. It may not be as pacy as some modern all-action thrillers, but it is never contrived and virtually every bit rings true.