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Check out our collecting first editions by the year. Biblio sellers have a fantastic collection of Beat Generation books and ephemera for browsing. Add to cart Buy Now. Thanks mom. Now dad provided the "men's action novel" section of my parent's library. My parents compliment each other. Mom is the intellectual with a couple different university diplomas. Dad is the Vietnam veteran and career police officer. As a boy I was drawn to dad's reading selections and one of my clearest memories are the hardback copies of Frederick Forsyth's first three novels on the shelves: The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Dogs of War.
Dad was a huge fan and even got mom to read the first two. My mother, the intellectual, found them to be "better than average genre novels" mom sometimes slips. I read The Odessa File when I was ten years old. At the time it took some effort, but I finished it and enjoyed it tremendously. The Dogs of War followed a few years later. Forsyth's later novels are competent, but they lack the Cinema Verite no I don't care if I'm using that term loosely of his first three novels which was the very thing that I liked.
As a result I moved on to Tom Clancy's more muscular works and the twentieth century rolled into the twenty-first. A couple weeks ago my wife brought home a Franklin Library leather-bound edition of The Day of the Jackal which she found at the local Deseret Industries store if you live where there are large numbers of Mormons you are familiar with "DI".
Terrific secondhand store chain offering a great selection of used books among other things. The best part is that my wife picked it up for only two dollars United States! On Ebay the leather bound editions sell for at least thirty dollars a piece so way to go honey. As I admired the high quality book I realized that I had never read Forsyth's debut novel.
I had seen Fred Zinnemann's movie of course , but never read the novel. An oversight that I knew I would have to correct.
I dare anyone who is a book lover to toss a high-end printing to the side without reading it - for the sheer sensual pleasure if nothing else. It's the equivalent of a classic car lover leaving a Jaguar XK-E Roadster in the garage and not driving it around the neighborhood on summer weekends So now that I have gone on and on without providing an actual review you're probably wondering what did I think about Mr. Forsyth's classic? Well I think it's a cracking good suspense novel.
It is a forty-five year old novel so the technology and some of the techniques are dated. The plot itself is not a complicated one. The French learn of the plot and the race is on to stop the killer before he stops President de Gaulle. In the French government,and all of it's military and police branches, did not have computers, cell phones, satellite surveillance, DNA, thermal scanners, unmanned aerial drones or any of the other tools that are now used in the never-ending struggle against terrorists.
The French authorities are also hampered by the President refusing to go into hiding as well as refusing to allow the news to be made public - which was so typical of that obstinate man. What they do have in their favor is manpower, organization and the French bureaucracy yes you heard that right - red tape and endless paperwork makes a valuable contribution on their side. The Jackal ,however, is a very smart man who is careful ,meticulous, motivated and lucky.
The result is a race to the finish and I found it to be a very effective race even though we all know that de Gaulle died seven years later in This means that one starts the novel knowing that the plot is a failure, but it still pulls one into the story.
That's an impressive piece of writing if you ask me. Day of the Jackal is an archetype of the modern "techno-thriller". Meticulously researched in which the characters function in our reality with all the drawbacks. Mistakes are made, people stumble and sometimes things move with an agonizing slowness. A former journalist Forsyth brought his skills to a novel, but he treated it like it was a research piece for a monthly news journal or a series in the London Times.
The result is that documentary "Cinema Verite " that I mentioned earlier. Younger readers will probably find Day of the Jackal to be dull with not enough action. The story is the action as it moves inexorably closer to the assassination attempt, but for the younger readers there is a definite lack of car chases, gunfights, thrilling escapes and an explosive climax. If one is curious as to how the story could be amped up see the movie version "The Jackal" with Bruce Willis and Sidney Poitier.
Actually I like that version as well, but in terms of what it is and not what it isn't. I try not to get excited about movies straying from the source material.
There are weaknesses, but that is true of everything in this world. Forsyth is an excellent researcher and excels at establishing a very realistic and detailed setting in which his characters move through.
However he isn't as strong when it comes the characters themselves. Forsyth will describe his characters with a few sentences and then moves on. Essentially his characters are cardboard cutouts with out the psychological depth that readers have come to expect in Actually ,in fairness to the older generation, many novelists were doing that back in as well, but remember that Forsyth was a journalist.
Journalists don't spend much time writing about the psychology of a politician usually. A few sentences about a president's background and then it's onto the meat of the story. Personally I didn't find the story hurt by the rather sparse character development. It's a suspense novel about a manhunt and not an in-depth character study. Well here I am with my concluding paragraph. What to write that hasn't already been written?
I'm going to opt with the simple approach. It's a good novel. Give it a try. View all 25 comments. The Day of the Jackal is a very remarkable and memorable thriller — while the other novels of this sort are usually forgotten too soon this book has stuck in my head for good.
It is a real duel of masterminds —one staying on the side of crime and the other serving on the side of justice. Frederick Forsyth 's meticulous and competent elaboration of the tiniest details made this novel unique. Re-reading The Day of the Jackal , Frederick Forsyth's Edgar winner for Best Novel, was perhaps even more satisfying than reading it for the first time can it really have been 36 years ago?
I would never quibble with the committee's choice on this one. As most people probably know, the book deals with a plot to assassinate Charles de Gaulle, President of France, by a group opposed to his policies on Algeria. Not only does the reasonably well-informed reader know that, historically, de Gaull Re-reading The Day of the Jackal , Frederick Forsyth's Edgar winner for Best Novel, was perhaps even more satisfying than reading it for the first time can it really have been 36 years ago?
Not only does the reasonably well-informed reader know that, historically, de Gaulle was not assassinated, but Forsyth actually makes a point of telling us this early in the book.
So, in a most important sense, we know from the outset how the book ends. And yet, it is one of the best examples I've read of page-turning, heart-stopping, breath-holding suspense writing.
Using the third-person omniscient form, Forsyth takes us into the minds and actions of the plotters, the police, and the Jackal himself. As the Jackal's preparations are being made, the French policeman, Lebel, is making his own preparations to foil the hired assassin. The police including a number of quasi-police agencies with few qualms about methods are well aware of the plot to assassinate de Gaulle -- several unsuccessful attempts have been made -- and they quickly surmise that the plotters have a hired killer.
But finding the Jackal is not so easy, and he always seems to be one step ahead of them until the last shattering moment. One thing that struck me in this reading of The Day of the Jackal was that, while one part of my brain was firmly on the side of Lebel and his need to stop the assassin, another part of me was admiring the Jackal's ingenuity and cool head, and almost wanted him to "win.
Forsyth puts the reader in the very unusual position of watching two consummate professionals doing their jobs in opposition to each other; even though we know which is the "good" or "right" side, our inward groans at a setback for the Jackal are as heartfelt as those for Lebel, at least until the last few chapters.
If you are too young to have read this book when it first came out, or even if you did read it then, do yourself a favor and read or re-read it. View all 3 comments. This book is one of the best books in its genre.
Haven't found a book which can be at par with The Day of the Jackal. Nov 09, Miranda Reads rated it it was ok Shelves: literally-painful-to-read , audiobook. The beginning was a sheer cliff of a learning curve. So, so many details, dates and people. I reread it 3 times before giving up and hoping that I'd catch on eventually.
I did catch on, I think This was entirely too much page space given to one day. Yes there are flashbacks but still As is, I had to slog through so much background and jargon and irrelevant bits that when I finally got to something interesting, I was ecstatic. Hopefully other espionage novels aren't like this one, otherwise I'm out of a genera Audiobook Comments Simon Prebble read this one and Dull, dry and monotone.
View 2 comments. Just hate. Hate for the system, for the politicians, for the intellectuals, for the Algerians, for the trade unions, for the journalists, for the foreigners; but most of all hate for That Man. I have chosen this particular passage to start my review because I find it disturbingly still relevant in the world of today. I am seeing all around me Hatred in the ascendancy and Reason getting thrown in the dustbin, as more and more people become radicalized and some even believe they can resolve their fears of the future by indiscriminate killing, sometimes of innocents, other times of the people they believe are in charge or are opposed to their twisted worldview.
Frederick Forsyth started his career as a war correspondent in Africa. He saw more than his fair share of horrors there, but when he came back and wrote a non-fiction account of the civil war in Biafra it went largely unnoticed.
So he decided to put his experience there and that in France as an investigative journalist to better use writing non-fiction.
The result is "The Day of the Jackal", which became so successful it almost created a thriller sub-genre of its own. Combining amazingly detailed technical information with elaborate political analysis and informed police procedural techniques, Forsyth deserves in my opinion all the praise he received for this three part "anatomy" of a plot to assassinate the French resident, Charles de Gaulle, by a group of disgruntled former army officers, enraged by his negotiations to bring the 'dirty' Algerian war to an end.
Yet, personally, the book was fairly disappointing to me. Of course, I admire the execution, the documentary style of narration and the carefully dosage of tension as the events unfold. But I failed to get emotionally involved with any of the characters, probably due to the same impersonal, cold, factual delivery of facts. And I found the accumulation of coincidences and lucky breaks toward the final days of the chase to be problematic towards sustaining my suspension of disbelief.
That's the main issue I think with this type of extremely detailed thrillers: they open themselves to a much more careful examination of plot holes and literary devices than a novel that relies on emotion and temperamental bursts of action.
The more careful you lay down the rules, the more they are open to interpretation. If the Jackal was so sure he had a foolproof plan, why did it pivot at a key entry on something as unreliable as the human element: that he would be allowed to pass a security barrier unchallenged before entering the building above the festivities? A taxi-driver goes to sleep by the roadside, a gardener is too nervous to investigate his employer oversleeping by six hours, a policeman doesn't remember a name in a passport.
One thing I can tell you, Lucien this is my last case. I'm getting too old. Old and slow. Get my car ready, would you. Time for the evening roasting. Just finished my 2nd or 3rd? It's still taut, suspenseful, and chilling! Like a lot of readers, I enjoyed the movie so much I bought the book at a time when you actually had to go to bookstores and place an order.
Online purchases were a thing of the future at that time. I found a first-edition hardcover copy in a used bookstore or thrift store can't remember. In a score of irritated French paratroopers have formed an organi Just finished my 2nd or 3rd?
In a score of irritated French paratroopers have formed an organization called the O. Secret Army Organization. Feeling betrayed by Prime Minister De Gaulle for giving Algeria its independence, they have sworn to kill him. After repeated failed attempts, the group goes in hiding and conjures up the only plan with any chance of success They must hire an outsider to assassinate the Prime Minister They must hire a contract killer with no connection to the OAS.
Only in this way will the killer be able to move freely without French authorities being aware of him. The man they hire is an Englishman who happens to be an incredible shot with a score of kills on his resume. When he has half deposited in his Swiss bank account he'll move. But his employers will not be aware of his plans, nor will they be aware of when he'll move forward. Secrecy is the best weapon they have, not forgetting his ability to hit his mark.
By pure chance and coincidence the French authorities learn of the OAS plan and assign their best detective to go to work and learn who this killer is, how he plans to kill their PM, and when. The movie closely follows the book, which is good, only in greater details that a movie can't do. Octavo, original half gray cloth, original dust jacket. Drawing on events such as a assassination attempt on De Gaulle, made by Alain de Bougrenet de la Tocnaye, Forsyth returned from years as a war correspondent in Africa to write his novel "in just 35 days, a feat he describes as something 'not quite so crazy when you think of twelve pages a day, times that by thirty-five and there you go, there's your novel" BBC.
Basis for the popular film by director Fred Zinneman, starring Edward Fox. Preceded the same year by the English edition. Watch list is full. Shipping help - opens a layer International Shipping - items may be subject to customs processing depending on the item's customs value. Your country's customs office can offer more details, or visit eBay's page on international trade. Located in:. Madison, Wisconsin, United States. This amount is subject to change until you make payment.
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