Patrick Worrall was educated in Worcestershire and King’s College, Cambridge, UK.
He has worked as a teacher in Eastern Europe and Asia, a newspaper journalist, a court reporter at the Old Bailey, and the head of Channel 4 News's FactCheck blog.
The Partisan is his first novel.
At Publishers Weekly he tagged ten spy novels to read before you die, including:
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth (1971)Read about another entry on the list.
This classic continues to inspire legions of stylistic imitators. Forsyth had an investigative reporter's eye for detail and used it to create an astonishingly realistic blend of fiction and historical fact: the real attempts by the far-right Secret Army Organization to assassinate Charles de Gaulle inspired this tale of a hunt for a dead-eyed British hitman on the loose in France. The tradecraft is also a big part of the appeal. It includes the famous "Jackal Fraud" technique for creating a false identity, which I have heard is still used by some intelligence professionals.
The Day of the Jackal is among Deborah Lawrenson's nine mysteries that will take you on a journey from Paris to the south of France, Daniel Palmer's seven best conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s, Jeff Somers's five thrillers that resist easy fixes, Sam Bourne's five favorite classic thrillers, and Christopher Timothy's six best books.
--Marshal Zeringue
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