Author Frederick Forsyth dies aged 86

Day of the Jackal author Frederick Forsyth CBE has died at the age of 86, after a brief illness, his agent Jonathan Lloyd has announced.

Lloyd, at Curtis Brown, called Forsyth "one of the world’s greatest thriller writers", who wrote more than 25 books (many of which were made into films) that have sold over 75 million copies.

Forsyth was born in Kent in 1938, and joined the RAF at the age of 18 before becoming a war correspondent for the BBC and Reuters. In 2015, he revealed he also worked for British intelligence agency MI6 for more than 20 years.

A documentary about Forsyth’s life, called In My Own Words, is set to air on the BBC later this year, and follows the author’s life from one of the youngest-ever RAF pilots, to his stint in journalism, using his ability to speak German, French and Russian to become a foreign correspondent in Biafra.

In his time, he was "appalled" at what he saw and, using his experience during a stint as a secret service agent, he wrote his first and perhaps most famous novel, The Day of the Jackal (1972).

Lloyd added: "He will be greatly missed by his family, his friends, all of us at Curtis Brown, and of course his millions of fans around the world – though his books will of course live on forever."

Bill Scott-Kerr, his publisher, said his relationship with Transworld began  in 1972 with the Corgi paperback publication of The Day of the Jackal.

He added: "With its never-before-read ice-cool writing, iconic jacket and a protagonist for the ages, The Day of the Jackal was an instant bestseller across the world and immediately propelled Freddie into a globally successful career which would span the next 50 years across books, films and, most recently, television."

Transworld became his hardback publisher with The Fist of God in 1994 and has since published all of his subsequent books, including a collection of short stories, The Veteran, a novel which was adapted into a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Phantom of Manhattan and an autobiography, The Outsider.

In August 2025, Transworld is set to publish Revenge of Odessa, his collaborative sequel to his 1974 novel, The Odessa File, on which he worked with thriller writer Tony Kent.

Scott-Kerr became Forsyth’s editor in 2002, which he described as an "honour", for Avenger, and remained so ever since.

He added: "Working with Freddie has been one of the great pleasures of my professional life, perhaps never more so when he pulled back the curtain on his eventful life in his autobiography, The Outsider, one of the most entertaining and fascinating non-fiction books you could hope to read. The flow of brilliant plots and ideas aside, he was the most professional writer an editor could hope for. His journalistic background brought a rigour and a metronomic efficiency to his working practice, and his nose for and understanding of a great story kept his novels both thrillingly contemporary and fresh. It was a joy and an education to watch him at work.