History Creator / FrederickForsyth

* DeadAllAlong: In "The Shepherd", a young RAF jet pilot gets into trouble when his instruments fail, he gets lost in the English fog, and is low on fuel. When he thinks everything's lost, a Mosquito (World War II plane, already out of date in 1957 when the story is set) shepherds him to an old dispersal field, and he survives. There he finds hints that the man who saved him apparently was [=WW2=] pilot Johnny Kavanagh (the other plane had "JK" written on it), who shepherded many planes during the war. But then he learns [[spoiler:that Johnny actually died fourteen years ago.]]

* HarsherInHindsight: In ''The Fist Of God'' an analysts point out that if America is successful in killing Saddam Hussein in an air strike, only one of two outcomes are realistic: 1) Saddam will be replaced by an equally brutal and possibly cleverer despot, or 2) Iraq will fragment along ethnic lines in a much bigger and bloodier version of Yugoslavia's disintegration, refugees will number in the millions, and Iran will expand its influence into Iraq. The latter scenario isn't too far removed from what happened in real life after Saddam was toppled by the USA in 2003.

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: InUniverse in "Privilege". A journalist nearly bankrupts a businessman by publishing lies about him. The businessman, discouraged from legal recourse by the possibility of losing everything in a costly libel trial, assaults the journalist, gets himself arrested and -- having learned that anything said by a defendant in his own defence does count as libel -- uses his day in court to denounce the journalist. [[spoiler: The judge sees through the ruse, but secretly sympathises -- and hands down the lightest possible punishment.]]

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: In "Privilege", a journalist nearly bankrupts a businessman by publishing lies about him. The businessman, discouraged from legal recourse by the possibility of losing everything in a costly libel trial, assaults the journalist, gets himself arrested and uses his day in court to denounce the journalist. [[spoiler:The judge sees through the ruse, but secretly sympathises.]]
* TheEndOrIsIt: A student buys a deadly snake to kill his bullying boss in "There Are No Snakes In Ireland". It escapes and, at the story's conclusion...

* {{Homage}}: The short story "The Emperor" is one to ''Literature/TheOldManAndTheSea'', though it also somewhat inverts the story. The Santiago stand-in, Murgatroyd, is a wimpy "company man" on holiday, rather than a capable, if aging, fisherman, and he ''chooses'' to let the marlin go, rather than killing it and losing its body to sharks. And while Santiago has no evidence of his epic struggle, Murgatroyd has people with him who witness his battle with the big fish, and the local fisherman hail him for letting the marlin, a local legend, go.
* HarsherInHindsight: In ''The Fist Of God'' analysts point out that if America is successful in killing Saddam Hussein in an air strike, only one of two outcomes are realistic: 1) Saddam will be replaced by an equally brutal and possibly cleverer despot, or 2) Iraq will fragment along ethnic lines in a much bigger and bloodier version of Yugoslavia's disintegration, refugees will number in the millions, and Iran will expand its influence into Iraq. The latter scenario isn't too far removed from what happened in real life after Saddam was toppled by the USA in 2003.

* RightfulKingReturns: The British install a member of the UsefulNotes/BritishRoyalFamily as the new Tsar of Russia, due to them being distant cousins of the Romanovs.

-->''(General-of-Police Valentin) Petrovsky then ran a series of covert will-they-take-a-bribe tests on some of the senior investigators. Those who told the bribe offerers to get lost received promotions and big pay hikes.''

* WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell: ''The Negotiator'' has some American arms manufacturers rather upset that the end of the Cold War means their weapon to destroy Soviet tanks isn't going to be a big seller. Time to stir the pot.

* HarsherInHindsight: In ''The Fist Of God'' analysts point out that if America is successful in killing Saddam Hussein in an air strike, only one of two outcomes are possible: 1) he will be replaced by an equally brutal and possibly cleverer despot, or 2) Iraq will fragment along ethnic lines in a much bigger and bloodier version of Yugoslavia's disintegration, a refugee problem in the millions, and Iranian extending its influence in Iraq. The latter did largely occur in the early 21st century after Saddam was toppled by the USA.

* MoneyDearBoy: ''The Day Of The Jackal'' was written because of this. Forsyth was broke and completed it in 35 days. And it all went uphill from there.

* BittersweetEnding: The ending of ''Avenger''. Secretly aided by his best friend from UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, the eponymous Avenger lives, and manages to deliver a murderous war criminal to justice. However, the CIA also loses their best shot at Osama bin Laden, and the next day the September eleventh attack takes place.

* YouDontWantToCatchThis: In ''The Fist Of God'', a British soldier is undercover as a Kuwaiti hospital employee in downtown Kuwait during its occupation by Iraq in the Gulf War. He is stopped at a checkpoint, and gets away by whining that all of the samples in his trunk will escape into the air. He states that the samples are of cholera and smallpox.

* DeadAllAlong: In "The Shepherd", a young RAF jet pilot gets into trouble when his instruments fail, he gets lost in the English fog, and is low on fuel. When he thinks everything's lost, a Mosquito plane (World War II plane, already out of date in 1957 when the story is set) shepherds him to an old dispersal field, and he survives. There he finds hints that the man who saved him apparently was [=WW2=] pilot Johnny Kavanagh (the other plane had "JK" written on it), who shepherded many planes during the war. But then he learns that Johnny actually died fourteen years ago.

* WarForFunAndProfit: In ''The Negotiator'', the villains attempt to restart the Cold War because their weapons contracts are being cancelled because the USA doesn't need them anymore.

* {{Determinator}}: Forsyth favours protagonists with this trait: Claude Lebel (and to an extent the Jackal), Peter Miller (''The Odessa File''), John Preston (''The Fourth Protocol'') are all types who are tenacious and thorough, if rather slow, in their work.

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: In "Privilege", a journalist nearly bankrupts a businessman by publishing lies about him. The businessman, discouraged from legal recourse by the possibility of losing everything, assaults the journalist and uses his day in court to denounce the journalist. [[spoiler:The magistrate sees through the businessman, but secretly sympathises.]]

* {{Homage}}: The short story ''The Emperor'' is one to ''Literature/TheOldManAndTheSea'', though it also somewhat inverts the story. The Santiago stand-in, Murgatroyd, is a wimpy "company man" on holiday, rather than a capable, if aging, fisherman, and he ''chooses'' to let the marlin go, rather than killing it and losing its body to sharks. And while Santiago has no evidence of his epic struggle, Murgatroyd does have people with him who witness his battle with the big fish, and the local fisherman hail him for letting the Marlin, a local legend, go.

-->"There will be no comebacks. [[spoiler:I shot her, too]]."

* WalkieTalkieGagOver: In ''The Fist of God'' SAS Major Mike Martin is covertly communicating from occupied Kuwait to his contact in Riyadh. The latter ends the conversation with "Over and out", a phrase nobody trained in proper radio procedure would use.

[[/idnex]]

* AcronymAndAbbreviationOverload: The military's penchant for this is noted in ''The Fist of God'' when the Americans get confused about why the British Army refers to large parts of Saudi Arabia as "MMFD". They eventually figure out that it stands for "Miles and Miles of Fucking Desert."
* AnonymousRinger: In ''The Devil's Alternative'', the female Prime Minister in power in 1979 is 'Joan Carpenter'. The trick is repeated in ''The Cobra'', when the unnamed US President [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama has a wife called Michelle]] and the (also unnamed) British Prime Minister [[UsefulNotes/DavidCameron has a wife called Samantha]].

Frederick [=McCarthy=] Forsyth CBE (born 25 August 1938) is a former RAF pilot and the author of several best-selling [[Main/{{Thriller}} thrillers]], most famously ''Literature/TheDayOfTheJackal'', ''Literature/TheOdessaFile'' and ''Literature/TheFourthProtocol''. These three were adapted into reasonably good films. Others have been adapted with less successful results. In 1989-90 he fronted ''Frederick Forsyth Presents'', a series of TV movies (some of which were later novelised in ''The Deceiver''). He's very well-known for his use of ShownTheirWork along with {{Twist Ending}}s, usually regarding the identity or motivation of a particular character.

* DiplomaticImpunity: In ''Fist of God'', the main character is being sent into Baghdad during the first Gulf War to gather intelligence from an asset there. Because of the danger to him if he is caught by the AMAM (the Iraqi version of the KGB), he requests that he be attached to a diplomatic household to help protect him if he is caught.

* ConsummateProfessional: Forsyth loves this trope with his most iconic characters, The Jackal, Cat Shannon, and Cal Dexter fitting this archetype to a "T".

* KarmicTwistEnding: In "No Comebacks", a wealthy property developer [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney hires a mercenary to kill the husband]] of the woman he loves.

* WarForFunAndProfit: In ''The Negotiator'', the villains attempt to restart the Cold War because their weapons contracts are being canceled because the USA doesn't need them anymore.

->''"No one knew The Day of the Jackal would do what it did. It was launched with no pizzazz, perhaps a cocktail or two. But by book three, The Dogs of War, I realised I wouldn’t have to go back to the ranges of Africa or the jungles of Vietnam. I could sit at home and write novels."''

Frederick [=McCarthy=] Forsyth CBE (born 25 August 1938) is a former RAF pilot and the author of several best-selling [[Main/{{Thriller}} thrillers]], most famously ''Literature/TheDayOfTheJackal'', ''Literature/TheOdessaFile'' and ''Literature/TheFourthProtocol''. These three were adapted into reasonably good films. Others have been adapted with less successful results. In 1989-90 he fronted ''Frederick Forsyth Presents'', as series of TV movies (some of which were later novelised in ''The Deceiver''). Very well-known for his use of ShownTheirWork along with {{Twist Ending}}s, usually regarding the identity or motivation of a particular character.

* ''No Comebacks'' (1982)

* ''The Veteran'' (2001)

* AnonymousRinger: In ''The Devil's Alternative'', the female Prime Minister in power in 1979 is 'Joan Carpenter'.

* Determinator: Forsyth favours protagonists with this trait: Claude Lebel (and to an extent the Jackal), Peter Miller, John Preston are all types who are tenacious and thorough, if rather slow, in their work.

* MoneyDearBoy: ''The Day Of The Jackal'' was written because of this. Forsyth was broke and completed it in 30 days. And it all went uphill from there.

* SelfPlagiarism: Forsyth fell prey to this in ''The Afghan'', stealing several word for word passages from ''The Fist of God'', and plot elements (such as one man telling the government that his brother can pass for an Arab, and then reminding the same people about it ten years later). Although he did change the back story for the brothers in the ''Afghan''.
* ShownTheirWork: TropeMaker. Forsyth's work is renowned for the research on the real world details he puts into the narratives of his book. As he noted, when writing The Day Of The Jackal, he wished to see if he could utilize the research skills he picked up as a journalist to help with the writing process.

* ''The Devil's Alternative'' (1979)

* BlackAndWhiteMorality: Thoroughly averted. Forsyth's books try to show the brutal reality the people who operate in the realms of politics, espionage and the military have to face with very little idealizing.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: What Forsyths books really are. Most of his main characters are unsavory, yet go up against much worse people.

* SelfPlagiarism: Forsyth fell prey to this in ''The Afghan'', stealing several word for word passages from ''The Fist of God'', and plot elements (such as one man telling the government that his brother can pass for an Arab, and then reminding the same people about it ten years later).

* AcronymAndAbbreviationOverload: The military's penchant for this is noted in ''The Fist of God'' when the Americans get confused about why the British Army refers to large parts of Saudi Arabia as "MMFD". They eventually figure out that it stands for "Miles and Miles of Fucking Desert".