The Day of the Jackal - Softcover

Forsyth, Frederick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553266306 ISBN 13: 9780553266306

Publisher: Bantam Books, 1992

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

"This was a book that broke the mould. It was the first of the heightened-detail thrillers filled with the sort of in-depth procedural and technical information that have become a large part of the fascination for readers of such books. It's a chase story, about the hunt for somebody, but what makes it so special is that it has a remarkable narrative engine to it, given that we know before we start the book that the assassin is going to fail in his bid to kill a real head of state. The proposition of how you get somebody to read a book from start to finish when they know the ending is handled magnificently. This also took the thriller somewhere else, in that it incorporated real people and events into the story to dramatic effect. Moreover, the assassin showed real genius in coming up with a way to achieve his objective, rather than relying on lazy Bond-style fantasy methods and gadgets. This used 'real-world ingenuity' to show how you could travel unobserved, obtain a false passport, hide a gun and so on. The movie might be good, but the novel is even better." (Lee Child Daily Mail)

"In a class by itself. Unputdownable." (Sunday Times)

"Mr Forsyth is clever. Very clever and immensely entertaining." (Daily Telegraph)

"I was spellbound ... riveted by this chilling story." (Guardian)

"The secret of the novel's success was not its prose style... but it's intimations of expertise." (Independent)

From the Publisher:

'In a class by itself. Unputdownable' Sunday Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0553266306
• ISBN 13: 9780553266306
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback