Review: “This was a book that broke the mould. The movie might be good, but the novel is even better.” This used ‘real-world ingenuity’ to show how you could travel unobserved, obtain a false passport, hide a gun and so on.

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 also took the thriller somewhere else, in that it incorporated real people and events into the story to dramatic effect. The proposition of how you get somebody to read a book from start to finish when they know the ending is handled magnificently. 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. 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.

This will enthral you from start to finish! Also a gripping film starring Edward Fox. They hire a professional assassin, a tall, cold Englishman who calls himself “the Jackal.” But in spite of his brilliant disguises and clever preparations, “the best detective in France,” Claude Lebel is close on his heels.Ī blockbusting novel from one of the world’s greatest thriller writers. Synopsis: It is 1963 and the Secret Army Organisation want to kill General de Gaulle, the President of France.

Day of the jackal author