Revenge of Odessa By Frederick Forsyth with Tony Kent
When I look back over the seven years of press interviews and assignments I’ve undertaken since the publication of my first book Killer Intent, it’s interesting to consider both the questions that have come my way and the answers I’ve given back.
The questions - some original, many of them often repeated - are a guide to where we are as a society at any given time: what subjects always matters versus what mattered in that moment. And the answers? They’re a little more personal, their changes over time tracing the development of the person to whom they’ve been put.
Perhaps even more informative are the answers that never change. Of which, in my case anyway, there are two.
The first is the old perennial: which book or author inspired you to write?
My answer to this will always be The Winner by David Baldacci. One of the great modern thrillers, the circumstances whereby that book inspired my career as an author are set out in interview after interview, many of them no doubt easily found online for those with a real appetite for these things. I won’t rehearse them again here because right now I want to focus on the second question; on its instant, without-a-second-thought answer; and on the life-changing impact that answer has had on the past twelve months of my life.
Tony Kent with David Baldacci (left) and with Frederick Forsyth (right).
The question: What is the single greatest thriller ever written?
The answer: The Day of the Jackal from the master himself, the late, great Frederick Forsyth.
I have given this answer without hesitation on every single occasion the question has been asked of me, and I have given it for the most simple of reasons: I have given it because I mean it.
The Day of the Jackal is, for me, the closest the thriller genre has ever come to a true work of art. Not because of its flowery, poetic prose, of which it has absolutely none. Not because of its expert use of metaphor and allusion, of which there is near zero. And not because of its deep exploration of the human soul, of which its author could not be less interested. No, The Day of the Jackal is art because it takes a story steeped in reality and in danger and it somehow turns that tale into the perfect example of the genre. It paints a picture so tense, so suspenseful, so utterly fearful that it quite literally keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. And it somehow does all that with a story that can only end one way.
We know the history. We know De Gaulle must survive. We know the Jackal must fail. And yet for four hundred and some pages Frederick Forsyth leaves us convinced that maybe…just maybe…
It is nothing short of genius: the perfect thriller, delivered by the master. A master who, given the disparity in our ages and our status, I never expected to even meet. But fate, as it often does, had other plans.
The footsteps that led to Freddie entering my life began even before Killer Intent was published. My brother-in-law - a high-flying finance type - was introduced to him at a work event and, being a good sort who gets things done, he jumped on the opportunity: would Freddie read my book and maybe say some nice words. Freddie agreed to take a look (as I later discovered he always does), a copy of Killer Intent was sent and a lovely hand-typed note was returned, very politely breaking it to me that he no longer reads for ‘blurbs’ (he used a far more eloquent, less clumsily modern term…). Disappointing but understandable, I learned one thing from the gesture: Frederick Forsyth, the man who defined my genre, lived less than 5 miles from my home in Buckinghamshire…
Not being a stalker by nature, I did nothing with this information. The universe was not so circumspect. In 2020 I was asked to speak at a local charity event: the after dinner entertainment. It must have gone quite well because a year later I received an invite to attend again, this time as a guest. The speaker: oh yes, you guessed it.
With my ever-vigilant wife Victoria somehow ensuring that I was sat next to Freddie for the duration of the evening, I would love to say that night saw the formation of a deep friendship. It didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, we got along very well, especially once he realised I was an author and not a rep from the local book store. We enjoyed one another’s company almost as much as he enjoyed speaking to Victoria on his other shoulder she is much prettier than me, thankfully - and I marvelled at his expert delivery of an after-dinner speech so much that I found myself taking notes. But as lovely as the night was we were at very different life stages and so it was less a friendship, more of a case of my writing hero at least being aware that I existed.
Or so I thought.
From then until 2024 Freddie and I would spend very occasional time together. Not enough for me but sufficient that he agreed to appear as the headline guest at the first Chiltern Kills - the one-day crime-writing festival I co-founded in 2023 with two fellow writers - and then to become the official patron of the event, an honorarium he still holds even after his passing. It was more than enough for me: I knew the master, no matter how peripherally. And he knew me.
Paul Waters, Frederick Forsyth and Tony Kent
Far more, I was to discover, than I had realised.
It was summer 2024 when I received the email from Finn Cotton at Transworld. Short and to the point: ‘I have an idea for a project, do you fancy a chat?’ I knew and liked Finn personally from the festival circuit. I knew his stellar professional reputation. And Transworld is Transworld! There was only ever going to be one answer, but never could I have expected what that chat would be about.
The pitch was as straightforward as it gets. Freddie, his eye keenly on the rise of the far right in continental Europe and particularly in Germany in recent years, had been working on an idea that he wanted to become his first ever sequel, the follow up to a novel almost as legendary as The Day of the Jackal itself: The Odessa File. But Freddie realised, I was told, that the day-to-day writing might be too much for him at his age and so he wanted a co-writer.
More specifically, he wanted me.
To say I was gobsmacked doesn’t come close to describing my reaction. Honoured? Absolutely. Pole-axed? Most certainly.
And keen? My God yes!!
Freddie, it turns out, had read my work since we had first met. For those of you who haven’t, it will come as no surprise from all I’ve said that I write within his own genre of political and conspiracy thrillers, and so perhaps it’s no surprise that he thought me a suitable candidate. That’s not to say I don’t remain blown away that he considered my standard good enough to take on his mantel. But whatever the ins and outs, the master had picked me to work with him on his first ever sequel and one of his most important projects: the follow-up to his other masterpiece.
In what world was I ever going to say ‘no’ to that?
What followed was a year-long education at the feet of the very best. Freddie had written a four-page synopsis of how he thought the plot would begin, how it would develop and, above all else, what The Odessa had become since 1963, the year in which his original was set. Working with Freddie’s amazing editorial team, we took those pages and we pulled them apart, keeping some, losing some, and we worked to extend them to a full fifty-page ‘mini-book’ that developed the characters, the threat and the politics and which took the plot from beginning to end.
It was the very opposite to my usual writing style. Ordinarily I think of an idea around which a plot can grow, I spend around three months thinking about it as I go about my day and then, once it is sufficiently percolated, I sit down ahead of a blank screen - strictly no notes - and I begin to type. That is of course impossible when co-writing, and what kind of a fool would do that when they have access to the brain that produced Freddie’s peerless backlist and the team that put those classics together? And so instead, for months, we worked to develop the book that would become Revenge of Odessa, until we were all satisfied that it was ready to turn from an intricate plan into a novel.
The team will forgive me, I’m sure, for admitting that this next stage of the process fell mainly to me. I was brought in to do the day-to-day writing, after all, and this is what happened next. It was an interesting process. I began by trying to write in Freddie’s voice, only to discover that impossible; only when I tried to copy it did I realise just how much skill went into his seemingly effortless prose, the Frank Sinatra of thriller writing. I also initially held back on the action typical of my own books and focused on Freddie’s brand of pure brand of 1970s suspense, only for us to realise that tastes have changed and the modern reader expects more ‘bang for their buck’, so in the action went. The learning curve was steep but we quickly found our feet and our rhythm, and the pages began to fill up fast.
I confess there was little discussion about the book during this pure writing period, Instead I would periodically send off the finished ‘sections’ and await comments and edits. Very few came, which I will always take as the ultimate compliment: I choose to assume that Freddie’s detachment from this stage was due to the early work done and his satisfaction with the result, rather than other distractions. Whatever the reality, it worked, the whole project as smooth and positive as it could possibly be.
The strangest thing about Revenge of Odessa, as I look at it now, the job done, is that my focus since sending in the final draft has been much more about working with and learning from Freddie than it has been about the book itself. But when I force that sentiment aside and consider what we produced together, I could not be more proud. Set in Germany and the United States over sixty years after the Odessa was exposed and brought to its knees in The Odessa File, Revenge of Odessa follows the grandson of original hero Peter Miller as he discovers how generations of Nazis have not only survived but have thrived across those six decades, and that they are on the brink of achieving absolute power. With time fast running out, what will it take for Georg Miller to bring down an enemy that has infiltrated every institution designed to stop them? Combining Freddie’s intricate, cerebral plotting, my own fast pace and thrilling action and the insistence of the full team that we stay as true to reality as the genre can be, I truly believe we have produced a piece of work to rival even Freddie at his best.
And with that now done, I guess it leaves just one last inevitable question: in the wake of Freddie’s death, what’s next?
Well, I have plenty of ideas and ambitions on that front already. But all of that is for another day. For now my focus is on Revenge of Odessa and on the man from whom I have been learning since the very first time I opened one of his books. It was incredibly sad to lose Freddie when we did, but it was the privilege of my life to have known him at all. That my name now appears next to his on even one book, its more than I could have ever asked.
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it one thousand times.
He was the master. I hope I can do justice to his legacy.
RIP
Now into its third year, Chiltern Kills will be held again this year on Saturday October 4th in Gerrards Cross, just 15 minutes out of London Marylebone by train and ten minutes from the M25/M40 junction by car. Tickets are £40 for a full day of 14 events featuring over 50 bestselling authors and running from 10am to 6.30pm, with on-site bookshop for signing plus bars and a food truck village to keep everyone going until the ’til you drop’ karaoke party that ends the day. All proceeds donated to Counterpoint UK to help fight youth homelessness. For tickets please visit www.chilternkills.com