Former RAF pilot and investigative journalist Frederick Forsyth defined the modern thriller when he wrote The Day of the Jackal, described by Lee Child as ‘the book that broke the mould’, with its lightning-paced storytelling, effortlessly cool reality and unique insider information. After that, he wrote thirteen novels which became bestsellers around the world: The Odessa File, The Dogs of War, The Devil’s Alternative, The Fourth Protocol, The Negotiator, The Deceiver, The Fist of God, Icon, Avenger, The Afghan, The Cobra, The Kill List and The Fox. He also published his memoirs in The Outsider. Frederick Forsyth died in June 2025.

Frederick Forsyth

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

A chilling story of modern terrorism from the master of international intrigue. 
 
When British and American intelligence catch wind of a major Al Qaeda operation in the works, they are primed for action - but what can they do? They know nothing about the attack: the what, where or when. They have no sources in Al Qaeda, and it's impossible to plant someone. Impossible, unless . . . 
 
The Afghan is Izmat Khan, a five-year prisoner of Guantanamo Bay and a former senior commander of the Taliban. The Afghan is also Colonel Mike Martin, a 25-year veteran of war zones around the world, a dark, lean man born and raised in Iraq. In an attempt to stave off disaster, the intelligence agencies will try to do what no one has ever done before - pass off a Westerner as an Arab among Arabs - pass off Martin as the trusted Khan. 
 
It will require extraordinary preparation, and then extraordinary luck, for nothing can truly prepare Martin for the dark and shifting world he is about to enter. Or for the terrible things he will find there . . . 
 
The Day of the Jackal, The Dogs of War, The Odessa File - the books of Frederick Forsyth have helped define the international thriller as we know it today. Combining meticulous research with crisp narratives and plots as current as the headlines, Forsyth shows us the world as it is, in a way that few have ever been able to equal. 
 
And the world as it is today is a very scary place . . . 
 ***Praise for Frederick Forsyth***'In a class by itself. Unputdownable.' Sunday Times 'Forsyth did away with the conventions of thriller-writing and still kept readers enthralled. He reset the whole genre.' Guardian'Meticulously researched' BBC''Forsyth...personified the journalist-author as superstar.' Telegraph ***Don't miss Revenge of Odessa, the new book from Frederick Forsyth and Tony Kent***

The Afghan

The global bestseller from the master of thriller writing

FREDERICK FORSYTH HAS SEEN IT ALL. AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE… 
At eighteen, Forsyth was the youngest pilot to qualify with the RAF. 
At twenty-five, he was stationed in East Berlin as a journalist during the Cold War. 
Before he turned thirty, he was in Africa controversially covering the bloodiest civil war in living memory. 
Three years later, broke and out of work, he wrote his game-changing first novel, The Day of the Jackal. He never looked back. 
Forsyth has seen some of the most exhilarating moments of the last century from the inside, travelling the world, once or twice on her majesty’s secret service. He’s been shot at, he’s been arrested, he’s even been seduced by an undercover agent. 
But all the while he felt he was an outsider. This is his story.

The Outsider

My Life in Intrigue

The kidnapping of a young man on a country road in Oxfordshire is but the first brutal step in a ruthless plan to force the President of the United States out of office. If it succeeds, he will be psychologically and emotionally destroyed. Only one man can stop it - Quinn, the world's foremost Negotiator, who must bargain for the life of an innocent man, unaware that ransom was never the kidnapper's real objective . . . 
 
The Negotiator unfolds with the spellbinding excitement, unceasing surprise and riveting detail that are the hallmarks of Frederick Forsyth, the master storyteller.

The Negotiator

From the bestselling author of The Day of the Jackal

PREPARE FOR TAKE-OFF ON THE FLIGHT OF A LIFETIME! 
 
Frederick Forsyth, himself author of The Shepherd, one of the greatest flying stories of the century, has selected a magnificent collection of fictional tales by some truly distinguished talents. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Roald Dahl and Edgar Allen Poe are among the unexpected writers in this thrilling anthology. 
 
Others - H.E.Bates, Len Deighton, Captain W.E.Johns, H.G.Wells and J.G.Ballard - have, more predictably, penned timeless stories of the air. There is science fiction too, mystery, horror, even detective fiction, in this, the ultimate flying collection.

Great Flying Stories

The international bestselling political thriller from the author of The Day of the Jackal, now a Sky TV series with Eddie Redmayne 
 
'Packs a punch... impossible to put down' Daily Mail 
'The plot is as taut and lean as ever' Daily Express 
'The master of the political thriller strikes again' Kirkus 
______________________ 
 
THE KILL LIST 
The names of those men and women who would threaten the world's security - held above top secret at the highest level of the US government. 
 
THE PREACHER 
At the top of it, a radical Islamic cleric whose sermons inspire his followers to kill Western targets. As the bodies begin to pile up in America, Great Britain and across Europe, the message goes out: discover this man's identity, locate him and take him out. 
 
THE TRACKER 
Ex-US marine, now one of America's most effective terrorist hunters, with an impossible job. Aided only by a brilliant teenaged hacker, he must throw out the bait and see whether his deadly target can be drawn from his lair... 
 
Readers love The Kill List: 
 
'Totally unputdownable! ***** Reader review 
 
‘Frederick Forsyth books always hit the spot. One of the greats.’ ***** Reader review 
 
‘[An] action-packed page-turner' ***** Reader review 
 
‘Another great read from the master storyteller’ ***** Reader review 
 
‘This book is up there with his best, meticulously researched, well- plotted...and the story doesn't lose impetus all the way through.’ ***** Reader review 
 ***Don't miss Revenge of Odessa, the new book from Frederick Forsyth and Tony Kent***

The Kill List

The No. 1 bestseller 
 
'Forsyth has lost none of his storytelling finesse and geopolitical grasp . . . this is Forsyth at his spellbinding best' Daily Mail 
 
'An ingenious, expertly written and serious look at international conflicts which threaten the future of the world' Washington Post 
 
Most weapons do what you tell them. Most weapons you can control. 
 
But what if the most dangerous weapon in the world isn't a smart missile or a stealth submarine or even an AI computer programme?What if it's a 17-year-old boy with a blisteringly brilliant mind, who can run rings around the most sophisticated security services across the globe, who can manipulate that weaponry and turn it against the superpowers themselves? How valuable would he be? And what wouldn't you do to get hold of him? 
 
The Fox is a race-against-time thriller across continents to find and capture, or protect and save, an asset with the means to change the balance of world power. Whatever happens he must not fall into the wrong hands. Because what follows after that is unthinkable...

The Fox

It was 1882 when Antoinette Giry, Maitresse du Corps de Ballet at the Paris Opera House, took her small daughter to the funfair at Neuilly. And there, in a cage, she saw a filthy manacled creature whose tormented eyes shone from a grotesquely deformed face. It was Antoinette Giry who saved him, freed him, cured his wounds and finally let him find a dwelling place in the labyrinthine depths of the Opera House. The creature - Erik - whose hideous face hid a brilliant brain of near-genius, was to become the Phantom of the Opera - magician, artists, musician, and lover. When he tried to lure the object of his adoration to his underground domain - it was to end in tragedy. 
 
It was Madame Giry who saved him once more, set him on a ship to the New World - and there Erik Muhlheim began a new and secret life, a life that began in misery and poverty but in which his incredible skills finally carved out an unexpected kingdom of power. And there it was he learned again of Christine, whose life had changed dramatically since that night in the Paris Opera House. 
 
Inevitably, their paths must cross again in the old sequence of tragedy and triumph. 
 
The Phantom, one of the most mysterious and romantic figures ever created, soars again in a world of his own making. Frederick Forsyth's magnificent and evocative story adds a new dimension to the legend of the Phantom.

Phantom Of Manhattan

During those fateful weeks before Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, a fragment of radio intercept had referred to Qubth-ut-Allah, a devastating secret weapon that could rain death and destruction on the Allied forces. 
 
Despite Allied scepticism, Major Mike Martin, an SAS man who can pass as an Arab, is sent into Kuwait to assess Iraqi strength and help the resistance. What he discovers there takes him into the heart of Baghdad, where he is to 'run' the Iraqi spy known as Jericho, the sleeper who might be prepared to provide vital information for money. It is a highly dangerous operation, the results of which cause the Allies to delay their ground assault for four days - while Martin parachutes into the Iraqi mountains on the most hazardous mission of his life: to find and destory Qubth-ut-Allah - the Fist of God.

Fist Of God

'One of his best works for a long time' Sunday Times 
'Another strong performance by a writer who know exactly what he's about' Publisher's Weekly 
'A cunningly constructed action thriller . . . the story is terrifying and timely and grips you to the end' Daily Telegraph 
_______________________________ 
 
From the world-renowned, bestselling author of The Day of the Jackal and The Fox 
 
It is 1999 and Russia is on the edge of total implosion. 
 
Social and moral order has collapsed. The only rule is imposed by mafia-like criminal gangs. And a visionary patriot whose voice rises above it all: Igor Komarov. 
 
It is in to this world that former CIA agent Jason Monk is plunged. Drawn out of retirement by the CIA's desperate bid to halt Komarov's meteoric rise, he must slip back in to Russia undetected and carry out a covert mission that the world depends on. With Komarov set to win the next election, Monk discovers a secret document that is smuggled in to the British Embassy in Moscow. Named The Black Manifesto, it reveals Komarov's horrifying and deadly secret agenda. 
 
With many Western leaders persuaded that Komraov can lead his country into a new age, and the election looming, time is running out. . .

Icon

A collection of five heart-stopping stories from the master thriller writer. 
 
A miracle in war-torn Siena that begins with the persecution of a young nun in the turbulent days of the sixteenth century and culminates in the bitter German retreat from Italy; a drug smuggling heist on an international flight where the Knock pit their wits against the smugglers; a brural urban murder, where a brilliant QC decides to defend the killers, resulting in a startling justice; an incandescent art scam at a famous London auction house, and a brilliantly plotted revenge that shatters the elegant world of the Old Masters - each story is a remarkable tour de force. 
 
And above all here is a brilliant novella, 'Whispering Wind', which begins with the single survivor of Custer's Last Stand at the battle of Little Big Horn. Then follows the rescue from rape and murder of a Cheyenne girl and a flight across the mountains and forests of the West, ending in a savage present-day manhunt in the wild lands of Montana.

The Veteran

Thriller Short Stories

AN UNWINNABLE WAR 
 
Cocaine is worth billions of dollars a year to the drug cartels who spread their evil seed across Western society. It causes misery, poverty and death. And slowly its power is spreading... 
 
A MAN ON A MISSION 
 
Ex-CIA special ops, Paul Devereux, intellectual, dedicated and utterly ruthless, is given what seems like an impossible task: Stop the drug barons, whatever it costs. At his disposal, anything he wants - men, resources, money. He must assemble a team equal to the lawless men who control this deadly trade. 
 
AN UNTHINKABLE SOLUTION 
 
Up to now the drug cartels have had it their way. Up to now, the forces of law and order have played by the rules. That is about to change. Those rules no longer apply... and a dirty war is about to get a whole lot dirtier...

Showing results for: ‘Frederick Forsyth’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter