The Day of the Jackal and the Continental Op

So, what does my recent Algeria obsession, in the form of having just read Alistair Horne's A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, have to do with crime fiction, anyhow?

For one thing, it reinforces how strongly Frederick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal, for all its thriller trappings, is really a police procedural that has marked affinities with hard-boiled P.I. stories as well (No wonder it won the best-novel Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1972).

The villains of Forsyth's classic 1971 novel are the leaders of the OAS, the breakaway paramilitary organization that, enraged by French President Charles de Gaulle's concessions to Algeria, hires a hit man known as the Jackal to kill him. The OAS were (and perhaps still are) dissident military men who constituted themselves as a group in Francoist Spain, then turned self-destructive fanatics and terrorists both in Algeria and in France.

The OAS and their followers were a complex bunch, not least in that they explicitly adopted tactics and organization from their principal opponents, the Algerian FLN, or National Liberation Front. Some had fought in the French Resistance against Nazi Germany. Not all were racist. And there was ample anxiety, suspicion, and contempt on the anti-de Gaulle side between some in the OAS on the one hand, and the ultras among the civilian pieds noirs on the other.

Forsyth wisely sketches this background very lightly or not at all. Instead, after setting the stage with the story of a real-life plot against de Gaulle, he has a council of French ministers and other big shots bring in  Claude Lebel, "the best detective in France," and if that sounds like the leading citizens of a Wild West town desperately seeking a new sheriff — or like the Continental Op being called in to clean up Poisonville in Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest — there's more to come.

Lebel is an ordinary cop, and his belittling by pompous, condescending, artistocratic ministers with whom he meets nightly is a running motif of The Day of the Jackal. This may remind readers readers of a thousand stories about P.I.s or cops who have trouble with authority. One passage near novel's end even calls Lebel "the little detective," which would also work as a description of Hammett's squat little Op.

On the plot side of things, Forsyth alternates sections describing the Jackal's maneuvers all over Europe, and the authorities' efforts to catch him. The idea, of course, is to build suspense by getting the reader wondering if the cops will get to the Jackal before the Jackal gets to de Gaulle, and the chapters devoted to the authorities are an exciting, convincing story of a criminal investigation, only in this case of a criminal who plans to kill the president of France.

(Hear Frederick Forsyth talk about The Day of the Jackal in an interview with the BBC.)

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A Savage War of Peace has one passage in particular that, whether or nor Alistair Horne intended so, may remind readers of a famous passage from Raymond Chandler. Take it away, Sir Alistair:

"Then, suddenly, with the least warning, the sky yellows and the Chergui blows from the Sahara, stinging the eyes and choking with its sandy, sticky breath. Men think, and behave, differently. It is a recurrent reminder that this is indeed Africa."

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

Frederick Forsyth and the day of the talking point

Frederick Forsyth famously wrote The Day of the Jackal in thirty-five days and, he says, the book was published without changes. Assuming my fortieth-anniversary edition of the 1971 novel was produced from the original printing plates or prepared from Forsyth's own typescript, the book shows occasional signs of haste: minor punctuation errors, an infelicitous word choice or two, and, on Page 286, Columbia for Colombia, though that might reflect English usage common in 1971.

But these don't rise even to the level of annoyances; that's how highly I think of the novel, which I'll probably have finished reading before I put up my next post.

One unexpected linguistic touch is Forsyth's use of talking point, which I did not know had entered the language as early as 1971, though he uses it somewhat differently from the way American political handlers and reporters do: "The President's instructions were that it must not become a press sensation and public talking point."

Forsyth is fine at handling the rivalries and enmities among French security officials, and his lampooning of the most pampered or self-seeking of them is over the top but great fun to read.

And now, the Jackal has just eaten a magnificent meal of speckled river trout grilled on a wood fire and tournedos broiled over charcoal with fennel and thyme. Let me join him, why don't you, before he trots off to shoot the president.

***

Carlos the Jackal got his nickname because a copy of Forsyth's novel is said to have been found near his belongings. What other real people have been named or nicknamed for characters from crime or spy fiction?

***

N.B. My apologies to readers who read transcript in the first version of this post's opening paragraph. I had typed, as I intended to do, typescript, but auto-correct overrode my correct choice. That's one curse Frederick Forsyth did not have to worry about in 1971.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

Frederick Forsyth at Crimefest: Thirty-five Days of the Jackal

Crimefest 2013 in Bristol, England, is coming up next month, and I plan to make my fourth appearance in the festival's six years. So this is a good time to start reading a classic thriller that I first got excited about at Crimefest 2012.

The opening hundred or so pages of The Day of the Jackal offer measured, chilling background to fanaticism from two French sides in the Franco-Algerian War. (The Jackal is an assassin hired  by right-wing military figures to kill French President Charles de Gaulle, incensed by De Gaulle's grant of Algerian independence after having declared "Vive l'Algerie Francaise!" De Gaulle proclaimed "Long live French Algeria!" then granted the country its independence, and "Vive le Quebec libre!" or "Long live free Quebec!" without, however, wrenching my native province out of Canada--at least not yet. He had a bit of a problem with this liberation thing.)

Now, why not listen to some Franco-Algerian music, read about the real aborted Algerian military coup against De Gaulle, and join me in The Day of the Jackal?

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 Thirty-five days. That's how long Crimefest 2012 honoree Frederick Forsyth said it took him to write his classic 1971 thriller The Day of the Jackal. And he said the novel was published as he had written it, without changes.

This and the rapidity of the book's composition earned him the good-natured jealousy of Peter Guttridge, who quizzed Forsyth in the first of the festival's six guest-of-honor interviews.

I had seen and liked the 1973 film version of The Day of the Jackal, but I had not read a word of Forsyth's work before today. His interview turned me into a fan, though, and I bought the book. My favorite bit of the interview was probably Forsyth's response to Guttridge's question about whether the world had grown more complicated since the Jackal's Cold War days.

"Very much so," Forsyth replied. "Al-Qaeda is here, there, everywhere. ... It's a weird world. It's a dangerous world. It's a bewildering." (And yes, Forsyth's tendency to speak in threes lends his speech a pleasantly rhythmic effect.) He also, by his own account, has led a fortunate and engaging life, so yes, I'm a Forsyth fan starting today.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012. 2013

Juicy bits at Crimefest

Sounds better than "pulp."

"Juicy bits" is what they call citrus pulp here in the UK, and I'm probably not the first North American who has enjoyed a salacious snicker at the breakfast table over the expression.

Crimefest 2012 begins this afternoon, and this young crime fiction festival must have arrived. This years's lineup includes Frederick Forsyth, P.D. James, and Sue Grafton, plus more Scandinavians than you could shake a plate of lutefisk at and a passel of old Detectives Beyond Friends, including Declan Burke, Anne Zouroudi, Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström, Chris Ewan, and Michael Stanley.

It was the latter two ("Michael Stanley" is the nom de publication of the writing team of Stanley Trollip and Michael Sears) who suggested a hair dryer and a tiny Phillips screw driver might salvage my camera from a minor aquatic accident suffered on the train yesterday.

Here the Crimefest program, complete with juicy bits. More to come.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012