Frederick Forsyth, who has died aged 86, personified the journalist-author as superstar, having hit the literary jackpot with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), but when he was swindled out of his first fortune he had to start again, and “worked my butt off writing five books in five years” to make his second.

He exaggerated, but only slightly. Certainly he was familiar with the reportorial techniques of fast fiction. He claimed to have rattled off his debut novel in just 35 days, although some (less successful) contemporaries grumbled about it needing more like a year. Forsyth himself pooh-poohed their suspicions: 12 pages a day, he pointed out, multiplied by 35, “and there is your novel”. By the way, he added, it had been 12 years in the planning.

This was Forsyth on typica

See Full Page