Frederick Forsyth to stop writing thrillers

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After a dozen novels and 70m book sales, British writer Frederick Forsyth has said he is giving up on thrillers because his wife told him he can no longer travel to adventurous places.

“I’m tired of it and I can’t just sit at home and do a nice little romance from my study,” said the 78-year-old, who revealed in a memoir last year that he had worked extensively for the MI6 spy service.
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“I ran out of things to say,” said Forsyth, who trained as a Royal Air Force pilot before joining Reuters news agency in 1961 and beginning his career as a novelist in the 1970s.

After his last trip to Somalia as research for The Kill List, Forsyth said his wife told him: “You’re far too old, these places are bloody dangerous and you don’t run as avidly, as nimbly as you used to.”

Forsyth, who has only ever written on a typewriter, said he had tried an online search for Somalia but had been “very dissatisfied” with the results.

“There was some statistical information on Somalia but not what I wanted, which was atmosphere,” he said.

*****

Oddly Forsyth made a few errors over the years due to his not visiting the locales he was writing about. The most glaring being a mention of a airport in his 'The Deceiver' as operating in the late 1980s when in fact it had closed in 1974.

My favorite Forsyth books- Day of the Jackal and The Fourth Protocol. The Dogs of War a close third.

His most recent books weren't as high quality. Nevertheless I and I am sure many other readers of his books will miss him.