The Day of the Jackal, by Frederick Forsyth

Incredibly convincing and exciting tale of an international, political assassin commissioned to rid France of its president, Charles de Gaulle. This is not your typical thriller in the sense that it works well within the realm of believability and reaches a level of cohesiveness those airport paperback authors could never hope to achieve. It does a great job building up a historical context for the proposed assassination and carefully weaves together all the plot elements. When you finish this book, you get the sense that nothing was left out, that you were much teased, but you were also generously rewarded in the end.

I also found a lot of enjoyment in all the traveling around Europe that happens in this story. Forsyth enables you to see the landscape where he paints his story and I really loved that.

If you want to laugh after reading this book, try to watch Hollywood's rendition of the story, that sorry movie called "The Jackal". The suave, intelligent and skilled Chacal gets turned into Mr. Big Gun merciless serial killer who shoots with remote controlled cannons and engages in crazy chase scenes. The original Zimmerman movie with Edward Fox is a lot better and closer to the book, but a screening in modern day is not going to be as overwhelmingly powerful as it was for me 25 years ago.