The Day of the J[ac]K[a]L
In 1966, Frederick Forsyth was working for the BBC, then quit shortly thereafter to cover the Nigerian Civil War on his own terms, as a freelance journalist. If he is to be believed, he was also enlisted around this time as a spy by MI6 (the acronym derived from its designation as section 6 of Military Intel during the build-up to WWII, but more formally, and for a longer period of time referred to as SIS, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service), again, if he is to be believed, in an unpaid and decades-long relationship. Version of the movie poster for "The Day of the Jackal" displayed in Krakow When his nonfiction account of the war ( The Biafra Story , published in 1969), failed miserably, he turned to writing spy fiction, approaching it as if he were still an investigative journalist. The Day of the Jackal is arguably his finest work. Taut, intelligent, believable, and naturally, leaving an inexplicable thread hanging at the end (there is no better Easter egg in...