The Day of the Jackal
by Frederick Forsyth · first published 1971
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2recommended by
6HN commenters
2009–2025first – last mentioned
33% recommend67% neutral
In a class by itself. Unputdownable' Sunday TimesOne of the most celebrated thrillers ever written, The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of an anonymous Englishman who in, the spring of 1963, was hired by Colonel Marc Rodin, Operations Chief of the O. A. S., to assassinate General de Gaulle. The Jackal. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world's most heavily guarded man. One man with a rifle who can change the course of history. One
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> Anyone have any recommendations for other classic spy novels like le Carre’s? Probably not comparable, but Frederick Forsyth's novels are great. He wrote The Day of the Jackal, The Fourth Protocol, etc. If you want a taste for his books, I would suggest The Devil's Alternative.
on “John le Carré's 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' is the ultimate spy novel” ↗> Chaos by James Gleick I read this quite a while ago, and can't remember it at all. What did you think of it? > The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth Loved this when I was a kid.
on “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” ↗Roughly 20 years ago, there was a documentary on British TV about fake ID. They found that the technique used in the 1971 book The Day of the Jackal (find someone dead, get a copy of their birth certificate, bootstrap other ID from that) still worked. They then demonstrated how you didn’t even need the person you were doing this to to be dead, as…
on “UK Home Secretary considering removing right to anonymity on social media” ↗…existing accounts expire, it could also be a way to create new digital identities. A modern day adaption of identity theft used in by the Forsyth character, "The Jackal" ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Jackal
on “Preparing for the digital afterlife” ↗Also from CBC.ca: "Frederick Forsyth, author of The Day of the Jackal, The Shepherd, dead at 86" at https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/1.6369690
on “How Frederick Forsyth wrote The Shepherd [audio]” ↗…House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune Chaos by James Gleick Wind and Truth (Stormlight Archive #5) by Brandon Sanderson The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
on “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” ↗