Frederick Forsyth and International Suspense

Frederick Forsyth, one of the world's top international thriller writers and a born raconteur, will talk to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on Tuesday Aug 20th about his career turning real news headlines into books of fictional intrigue. From the attempted assassination of French President Charles de Gaulle (The Day of the Jackal) to the hunt for Nazi war criminals (The Odessa File) to his more recent novels about al Qaeda (The Afghan) and the cocaine cartels (The Cobra), Forsyth's books span the globe. His trademark style is meticulous research and exquisite attention to detail that often makes the line between fact and fiction in his books hard to draw. His latest book, The Kill List, about a secret US program to track down and kill Muslim preachers who are radicalizing youth in the US, seems to eerily foreshadow the recent Boston bombing and the controversy over NSA surveillance of email and phone calls inside the US.

Forsyth has written 13 novels, four of which have been turned into movies - his characters are spies, mercenaries, criminals, politicians, soldiers and corporate executives, who are inevitably drawn into a series of conspiracies with very high stakes. The Dogs of War, about mercenaries trying to topple an African government to get access to a platinum mine, was filmed with Christopher Walken and Tom Berenger, and The Fourth Protocol, in which Soviet agents attempt to plant a nuclear bomb on a US base in the UK, was made into a film starring Pierce Brosnan and Michael Caine.

After university Forsyth joined the Royal Air Force in the UK and became a fighter pilot. He then became a foreign correspondent for the BBC, where he developed the investigative journalist skills that he later used to such effect in his novels. A political Conservative, Forsyth believes the UK should get out of the European Union. He will bring a unique view of world affairs to the Council.