The Emperor is a fantastic short story out of that book.
Look two posts before yours.
I thought something like this too. I enjoyed it, but couldn’t shake the feeling his publishers had been on the phone saying something like “Fred, mate, where’s that book you promised us? Whatever you’ve got’s fine, we really need to get it to the printers sharpish” when he was trying to finish it.
Otherwise, pretty much everything else he’s written is excellent (although, to be fair, I haven’t read the Phantom sequel he did). The Dogs Of War is brilliant (although the movie is just OK), the original Day Of The Jackal is, IMHO, the textbook example of how to adapt a book to film, and his various short stories are excellent too.
Interestingly, quite a few of them were filmed for TV some years ago (Brian Dennehy was in one about a spy being sent back across the Berlin Wall for One Last Job) and they were very well done, although one of them (a murder mystery on a Caribbean island) omitted a crucial point from the original story necessary for the ending to make any sense.
Oh yeah? Well, YOU look two posts before YOURS! 
I don’t see nothin’ 'bout no Phantom in your post.
Added – okay, I was looking two before my first post (which was yours)
“Good on yer, Murgatroyd!”
I came in here to add this one. I’ve read most of Forsyth’s books, but my all time favorite is No Comebacks. A collection of 10 short stores with great plot twists.
I haven’t thought of FF in forever. I’m going to see if I can Kindle No Comebacks right now.
(whimpering) I’m confused.
It’s all a plot, I tell ya!
Big fan of Forsyth, and I agree that No Comebacks is a great collection of short stories. Two I really remember loving <damn, you people make me go get books all the time!> one I think was called Here Be Snakes and one about this kinda browbeaten British dude spending a day catching a famous local swordfish.
“Good on yer, Murgatroyd!”
When you finish Forsyth, I recommend you check out A.J. Quinnell.
The first one is, IIRC, There are no Snakes in Ireland
Not really a bad book, but the only one I felt wasn’t up to par with his others. In particular, arbitrarily allowing a member of the Imperial family to be whacked seemed just so … nonessential?
I got the impression the book was cranked out in a hurry to meet a millennium deadline, or possibly in anticipation of Yeltsin being forced out of office (which he soon was). Forsyth’s research on Moscow certainly wasn’t as thorough as for, say, London or Paris (example: you just don’t “wait for the light” and then walk across Tverskaya St; you have to use pedestrian tunnels).
I think my favorites are Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, and The Deceiver. All are superb!
I first read The Day of the Jackal back around 1986, at the recommendation of my high school French teacher. Loved it.
Just this past year I picked up a copy from the library to see if it was as magical as I remembered. Just as before, once picked up I couldn’t put it down again. Utterly spellbinding.
I’ve read most of his other books over the years with varying degrees of appreciation. No Comebacks I highly recommend, along with The Fist of God.
Forsyth’s masterpiece, though, is The Devil’s Alternative.