Frederick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal

Frederick Forsyth is an extremely popular British writer. He was born in 1938, and when he left
school, he could already speak four foreign languages. From 1956 to 1958 he did his National Service in the
Royal Air Force, before becoming a local and then an international news reporter. His work for Reuters from
1961 to 1965 took him to London, Paris and East Berlin, and then he worked for several years as a radio and
television reporter for the BBC. When he left the BBC, he went independently to Biafra, in West Africa, and
he wrote about terrible war that was taking place there. On his return, he had a period without work, so he
decided to write fiction instead. His first book was so successful that many others followed.
In the opening scene if the book the members of Secret Army Organization (also called OAS) are
trying unsuccessfully to assassinate the President of France Charles De Gaulle by shooting at his car. They
are angry with De Gaulle for his part in allowing Algeria to become independent from France. Their leader
Colonel Marc Rodin decides to hire a professional killer from outside the France (in June 1963). He and his
men René Montclair and André Casson chose a man who calls himself "the Jackal". The story follows the
Jackal's careful planning and preparations for the assassination and efforts of police detective Claude Lebel
to stop the killing and save the President's life.
At the beginning of the story, the Jackal was looking for few passports to make police uneasy to find
him. Afterwards he needed a gun, but the very special gun, which goes inside several tubes, which fit
together. Because of that he flew to Brussels to met gunmaker Paul Goossens.
On 22nd July he caught a fast train to Paris (the ceremony – president's speech - was going to happen
there) to chose the best place to shoot from. Meanwhile the French police caught a man named Sandor
Kovacs, a Hungarian, who was also a member of OAS. They discovered his friend Viktor Kowalski who was
still free and had connections with OAS, they thought, he could tell them some things about the Jackal. On
the last day of the month, the Jackal was busy. He spent the morning at a market, where he bought a flat
black hat, a pair of old shoes, some not-very-clean trousers, and a very long army coat, which covered his
knees. He also bought several old medals. Then he collected his luggage from his hotel and caught a train to
Brussels arriving there in the last hours of July to pick up the gun.
While the Jackal was shopping in Brussels, Victor Kowalski was informed that his daughter was going
to die. He caught a plain to Marseilles on Wednesday morning at 11.15, but he had not noticed the two men
who had followed him. After few hours they arrested him, but nearly killed him. He told them only a little
about the Jackal's plains, but everything they wanted to know. Afterwards a French minister Roger Frey
hired detective Claude Lebel to find an identity of the Jackal.
After few days police found Jackal's real name, it was Charles Calthrop. Police thought he must be
stupid to choose a name that is made up of the first three letters of his first name, and the first three letters of
his surname (cause the Jackal in French is Chacal). They found his passport and found his false name
Alexander James Duggan, cause he was killed in a road accident on 8th November 1931 (more than 30 years
ago). Police also caught Valmy a member of OAS, a reporter to Jackal. Lebel learned everything what Jackal
was going to do.
Sunday, 25th August 1963, was very hot, the Rue de Rennes was the street where the ceremony was
going to happen. The Jackal was going slowly down the street, wearing a dirty black hat and a long army
coat. Than he moved quickly up the stairs to the sixth floor of the house, he chose before. Claude Lebel
arrived at the Rue de Rennes few minutes later. He spoke to policeman who stood in the entrance to the
street and he told him that an old man had passed through, he was wearing a long army coat. Claude asked
for his address and went there. He arrived on the sixth floor, shot the lock off and opened the door into the
room. He recognized the gray hair and long army coat. Lebel shot at him and killed him when the bullet hit
the Jackal in the chest.
I'm not a fan of reading, especially of very long stories, but I quite enjoy this book. It's not to long and
not to short and I largely understand to whole story. I read through this book in 2 hours and that's why I
love this kind of books. So I think that's all I can say about this short story. I can recommend it to you.
"The Day of the Jackal (1971)" was first of Forsyth's great stories. It only took thirty-five days to wrote,
but it was an immediate success. The book is about a plan to kill the French president, General de Gaulle,
and it is not just the product of assassinate de Gaulle in 1963, the year in which "The Day of the Jackal" takes
place. Most of the characters are also real, although André Malraux, one of De Gaulle's government
ministers, read it. The book sold more than a million copies; it was translated into many others languages
and become a popular film.

Forsyth's stories are often told against a background of real events, people and places. As an
experienced reporter, he describes these in careful and exact detail. As a result of his personal experiences
in Africa, for example, he expressed in "The Dogs of War (1974)" his strong feelings about the violence of
governments against their own people. "The Odessa File (1972)" is another of his most famous books. It is
the story off a young reporter searching for a German war criminal who has moved to South America,
where other war criminals have formed a secret group called Odessa. Forsyth also wrote one non/fiction
book, "The Biafra Story (1969)", and a collection of short stories called "No Comebacks (1982)".

He robbed a Danish priest Per Jensen and two days later an American student Marty Schulberg, now he
missed only a British passport, he let do it in Brussels on the name of Alexander Duggan. He found this
name in church records of a small country town
Frederick Forsyth
The Day of the Jackal (1971)