The Day of the Jackal: The legendary assassination thriller - Hardcover

"This was a book that broke the mould. 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. 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. The proposition of how you get somebody to read a book from start to finish when they know the ending is handled magnificently. This also took the thriller somewhere else, in that it incorporated real people and events into the story to dramatic effect. 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 used 'real-world ingenuity' to show how you could travel unobserved, obtain a false passport, hide a gun and so on. The movie might be good, but the novel is even better." (Lee Child Daily Mail)

"In a class by itself. Unputdownable." (Sunday Times)

"Mr Forsyth is clever. Very clever and immensely entertaining." (Daily Telegraph)

"I was spellbound ... riveted by this chilling story." (Guardian)

"The secret of the novel's success was not its prose style... but it's intimations of expertise." (Independent)

The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of the struggle to catch a killer before it's too late.

It is 1963 and an anonymous Englishman has been hired by the Operations Chief of the O.A.S. to murder General De Gaulle. A failed attempt in the previous year means the target will be nearly impossible to get to. But this latest plot involves a lethal weapon: an assassin of legendary talent.

Known only as The Jackal, this remorseless and deadly killer must be stopped, but how do you track a man who exists in name alone?