Frederick Forsyth, the best-selling thriller writer, has died at the age of 86.
Forsyth became famous in the 1970s after writing The Day of the Jackal, which told of a plot to kill the President of France, Charles de Gaulle.
He went on to become a prolific writer of thrillers, including The Odessa File, about Nazis escaping justice; The Dogs of War, about a mercenary-led coup in a fictional African country; and The Fourth Protocol, which told of a plot to install a pro-Soviet left-wing government in the UK.
Forsyth was born in 1938 in Kent. He joined the Royal Air Force after school before becoming a journalist, working for Reuters and the BBC.
His first book, The Biafra Story, was a non-fiction book about the Nigerian Civil War, and arose out of Forsyth’s outrage at the lack of accurate reporting about the suffering of Biafrans.
Forsyth said that while covering Biafra, he became an informer for the British intelligence services, a relationship which lasted for twenty years.
Forsyth turned to thriller-writing in the early 1970s. He was unemployed and in debt, and decided to try his hand at being a novelist: a plan which turned out to be successful.
Forsyth married twice and had two sons with his first wife.