Eye of the Needle

by Ken Follett

His weapon is the stiletto, his codename: The Needle. He is Hitler's prize undercover agent - a cold and professional killer. It is 1944 and weeks before D-Day. The Allies are disguising their invasion plans with a phoney armada of ships and planes. Their plan would be ruined if an enemy agent found out...and then The Needle does just that. Hunted by MI5, he leads a murderous trail across Britain to a waiting U-Boat. But he hasn't planned for a storm-battered island, and the remarkable young woman who lives there. "Eye of the Needle", an international bestseller, is a heart-racingly exciting tale about the fate of the war resting in the hands of a master spy, his opponent and a brave woman. 'An absolutely terrific thriller, so pulse-pounding, so ingenious in its plotting and so frighteningly realistic that you simply cannot stop reading' - "Publishers Weekly". 'A tense, marvellously detailed suspense thriller based on a solid foundation of fact' - "Sunday Times".

• ISBN10: 0330509918
• ISBN13: 9780330509916
• Publish Date: 7 August 2009 (first published June 1979)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 3 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Imprint: Pan Books
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 480
• Language: English

Reviews

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

This is my first Ken Follett book (much to the disappointment of my wife) but I wanted to tackle something small before attempting on of his epics. Eye of the Needle tells the story of a German master spy ‘The Needle’ and his attempt to uncover the plans of the English army during World War 2 (a few weeks before D-Day). This book was a little light on the espionage and too much focused on the generic thriller formula. I also felt the feeling of World War 2 was missed; this book could have been a lot darker and grittier without losing anything in the story. But then again I’m just a sucker for darker books, so when it's a WWII novel is a little on the light side, I tend to get disappointed. I love the antagonist ‘The Needle’ and kind of wished he was the protagonist, I think the character could have made a decent book series. I guess people don’t want the Germans to win the war. There are some amusing scenes but all in all it was like reading a Jason Borne style novel set in World War 2; while exciting it really could have been a lot better.

[ibeforem]

Eye of the Needle was Follet’s first book published in the U.S., and it’s no surprise that it’s sold somewhere around 10 million copies worldwide. I consider Follett’s WWII books to be his best. He is able to put us smack dab in the middle of the war, usually in a situation we wouldn’t expect. Here, he takes a single question — What if the Germans knew the Allies were attacking Normandy? — and turns it into a thrilling cross-country chase that culminates in an unexpected showdown on a tiny island. He gives us characters that are three-dimensional and complex, even if they aren’t major characters in the story. Perhaps most interesting was Follett’s fictional Third Reich.

I was fortunate enough to see Ken Follett speak at the National Book Festival this year, and now I’m a bigger fan than ever. How can you not like a man who tops off every writing day with a glass of champagne?