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One enemy spy knows the secret to the Allies' greatest deception, a brilliant aristocrat and ruthless assassin -- code name: "The Needle" -- who holds the key to ultimate Nazi victory.
Only one person stands in his way: a lonely Englishwoman on an isolated island, who is beginning to love the killer who has mysteriously entered her life.
All will come to a terrifying conclusion in Ken Follett's unsurpassed and unforgettable masterwork of suspense, intrigue, and the dangerous machinations of the human heart.
This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
An extraordinary World War II German agent with secret information about the Allied D-Day landing waits at an English lighthouse to be picked up by a submarine and becomes sidetracked by an affair with a paraplegic's wife.
Ken Follett's career as a bestselling author has spanned more than three decades. He is the author of numerous immensely popular books, including Eye of the Needle, Triple, The Key to Rebecca, The Man From St. Petersburg, On Wings of Eagles, Lie Down With Lions, The Pillars of the Earth, A Dangerous Fortune, The Third Twin, The Hammer of Eden, and World Without End. He lives in England with his wife, Barbara Follett, a British M.P.
Follett's more formal education took place years later at London's University College, where he studied philosophy -- a choice that, as he explains on his official Web site, he believes guided his career as an author. "There is a real connection between philosophy and fiction," Follet explains. "In philosophy you deal with questions like: ‘We're sitting at this table, but is the table real?' A daft question, but in studying philosophy, you need to take that sort of thing seriously and have an off-the-wall imagination. Writing fiction is the same."
After graduating in 1970, a journalism class touched off Follett's career as a writer. He started out covering beats for the South Wales Echo, and later wrote a column for London's Evening News. Becoming more and more interested in writing fiction on evenings and weekends, however, Follett soon realized that books were his true business, and in 1974 he went to work for Everest Books, a humble London publishing house.
After releasing a few of his own novels to less than thunderous acclaim --including The Shakeout (1975) and Paper Money (1977) -- Follett finally hit it big with 1978's Eye of the Needle. The taut, edgy thriller with more than a dash of sex appeal flew off the shelves, winning the Edgar award and allowing Follett to quit his job and get to work on his next book, Triple. Showing no signs of a sophomore slump, Triple went on to spark a string of bestselling spy thrillers, including The Key to Rebecca (1980), The Man from St. Petersburg (1982), and Lie Down with Lions (1986). 1983's On Wings of Eagles was an interesting departure -- a nonfiction account of how two of Ross Perot's employees were rescued from Iran in 1979.
Follett changed direction even more sharply in 1989, surprising fans with The Pillars of the Earth -- a novel set in the Middle Ages many critics considered his crowning achievement. "A novel of majesty and power," said The Chicago Sun-Times of Follett's epic story. "It will hold you, fascinate you, surround you."
Follett's next three books were a trio considered to be more suspenseful than thrill-filled -- Night Over Water (1991), A Dangerous Fortune (1993) and A Place Called Freedom (1995), but The Third Twin (1996) and The Hammer of Eden (1998) marked a return to Follett's trademark capers. The wartime novels Code to Zero (2000) and Jackdaws (2001) showcased Follett's "unique ability to tell stories of international conflict and tell them well," according to Larry King in USA Today.
Follett "hits the mark again" (Publishers Weekly) with his latest story of international intrigue, Hornet Flight (2002) -- the WWII story of a young couple trying to escape occupied Denmark in a rebuilt Hornet Moth biplane who become unwitting carriers of top-secret information.
In a way, Follett's smash-hit success has allowed him to give back to the library of Cardiff, Wales -- by filling its shelves with his own transporting tales.
A very civic-minded soul, Follett is quite involved in his Hertfordshire community, serving as President of the Dyslexia Institute, Council Member of the National Literacy Trust, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Chair of Governors of the Roebuck Primary School & Nursery, Patron of Stevenage Home-Start, director of the Stevenage Leisure Ltd. and Vice-President of the Stevenage Borough Football club.
It was the coldest winter for forty-five years. Villages in the English countryside were cut off by the snow and the Thames froze over. One day in January the Glasgow-London train arrived at Euston twenty-four hours late. The snow and the blackout combined to make motoring perilous; road accidents doubled, and people told jokes about how it was more risky to drive an Austin Seven along Piccadilly at night than to take a tank across the Siegfried Line.
Then, when the spring came, it was glorious. Barrage balloons floated majestically in bright blue skies, and soldiers on leave flirted with girls in sleeveless dresses on the streets of London.
The city did not look much like the capital of a nation at war. There were signs, of course; and Henry Faber, cycling from Waterloo Station toward Highgate, noted them: piles of sandbags outside important public buildings, Anderson shelters in suburban gardens, propaganda posters about evacuation and Air Raid Precautions. Faber watched such things — he was considerably more observant than the average railway clerk. He saw crowds of children in the parks, and concluded that evacuation had been a failure. He marked the number of motor cars on the road, despite petrol rationing; and he read about the new models announced by the motor manufacturers. He knew the significance of night-shift workers pouring into factories where, only months previously, there had been hardly enough work for the day shift. Most of all, he monitored the movement of troops around Britain's railway network; all the paperwork passed through his office. One could learn a lot from that paperwork. Today, for example, he had rubber-stamped a batch of formsthat led him to believe that a new Expeditionary Force was being gathered. He was fairly sure that it would have a complement of about 100,000 men, and that it was for Finland.
There were signs, yes; but there was something jokey about it all. Radio shows satirized the red tape of wartime regulations, there was community singing in the air raid shelters, and fashionable women carried their gas masks in couturier-designed containers. They talked about the Bore War. It was at once larger-than-life and trivial, like a moving picture show. All the air raid warnings, without exception, had been false alarms.
Faber had a different point of view — but then, he was a different kind of person.
He steered his cycle into Archway Road and leaned forward a little to take the uphill slope, his long legs pumping as tirelessly as the pistons of a railway engine. He was very fit for his age, which was thirty-nine, although he lied about it; he lied about most things, as a safety precaution.
He began to perspire as he climbed the hill into Highgate. The building in which he lived was one of the highest in London, which was why he chose to live there. It was a Victorian brick house at one end of a terrace of six. The houses were high, narrow and dark, like the minds of the men for whom they had been built. Each had three stones plus a basement with a servants' entrance — the English middle class of the nineteenth century insisted on a servants' entrance, even if they had no servants. Faber was a cynic about the English.
Number Six had been owned by Mr. Harold Garden, of Garden's Tea and Coffee, a small company that went broke in the Depression. Having lived by the principle that in solvency is a mortal sin, the bankrupt Mr. Garden had no option but to die. The house was all he bequeathed to his widow, who was then obliged to take in boarders. She enjoyed being a landlady, although the etiquette of her social circle demanded that she pretend to be a little ashamed of it. Faber had a room on the top floor with a dormer window. He lived there from Monday to Friday, and told Mrs. Garden that he spent weekends with his mother in Erith. In fact, he had another landlady in Blackheath who called him Mr. Baker and believed he was a traveling salesman for a stationery manufacturer and spent all week on the road.
He wheeled his cycle up the garden path under the disapproving frown of the tall front-room windows. He put it in the shed and padlocked it to the lawn mower — it was against the law to leave a vehicle unlocked. The seed potatoes in boxes all around the shed were sprouting. Mrs. Garden had turned her flower beds over to vegetables for the war effort.
Faber entered the house, hung his hat on the hall-stand, washed his hands and went in to tea.
Three of the other lodgers were already eating: a pimply boy from Yorkshire who was trying to get into the Army; a confectionery salesman with receding sandy hair; and a refired naval officer who, Faber was convinced, was a degenerate. Faber nodded to them and sat down.
The salesman was telling a joke. "So the Squadron Leader says, 'You're back early!' and the pilot turns round and says, 'Yes, I dropped my leaflets in bundles, wasn't that right?' So the Squadron Leader says, 'Good God! You might've hurt somebody!"'
The naval officer cackled and Faber smiled. Mrs. Garden came in with a teapot. "Good evening, Mr. Faber. We started without you — I hope you don't mind."
Faber spread margarine thinly on a slice of wholemeal bread, and momentarily yearned for a fat sausage. "Your seed potatoes are ready to plant," he told her.
Faber hurried through his tea. The others were arguing over whether Chamberlain should be sacked and replaced by Churchill. Mrs. Garden kept voicing opinions, then looking at Faber for a reaction. She was a blowsy woman, a little overweight. About Faber's age, she wore the clothes of a woman of thirty, and he guessed she wanted another husband. He kept out of the discussion...
It was the coldest winter for forty-five years. Villages in the English countryside were cut off by the snow and the Thames froze over. One day in January the Glasgow-London train arrived at Euston twenty-four hours late. The snow and the blackout combined to make motoring perilous; road accidents doubled, and people told jokes about how it was more risky to drive an Austin Seven along Piccadilly at night than to take a tank across the Siegfried Line.
Then, when the spring came, it was glorious. Barrage balloons floated majestically in bright blue skies, and soldiers on leave flirted with girls in sleeveless dresses on the streets of London.
The city did not look much like the capital of a nation at war. There were signs, of course; and Henry Faber, cycling from Waterloo Station toward Highgate, noted them: piles of sandbags outside important public buildings, Anderson shelters in suburban gardens, propaganda posters about evacuation and Air Raid Precautions. Faber watched such things -- he was considerably more observant than the average railway clerk. He saw crowds of children in the parks, and concluded that evacuation had been a failure. He marked the number of motor cars on the road, despite petrol rationing; and he read about the new models announced by the motor manufacturers. He knew the significance of night-shift workers pouring into factories where, only months previously, there had been hardly enough work for the day shift. Most of all, he monitored the movement of troops around Britain's railway network; all the paperwork passed through his office. One could learn a lot from that paperwork. Today, for example, he had rubber-stamped a batch of forms that led him to believe that a new Expeditionary Force was being gathered. He was fairly sure that it would have a complement of about 100,000 men, and that it was for Finland.
There were signs, yes; but there was something jokey about it all. Radio shows satirized the red tape of wartime regulations, there was community singing in the air raid shelters, and fashionable women carried their gas masks in couturier-designed containers. They talked about the Bore War. It was at once larger-than-life and trivial, like a moving picture show. All the air raid warnings, without exception, had been false alarms.
Faber had a different point of view -- but then, he was a different kind of person.
He steered his cycle into Archway Road and leaned forward a little to take the uphill slope, his long legs pumping as tirelessly as the pistons of a railway engine. He was very fit for his age, which was thirty-nine, although he lied about it; he lied about most things, as a safety precaution.
He began to perspire as he climbed the hill into Highgate. The building in which he lived was one of the highest in London, which was why he chose to live there. It was a Victorian brick house at one end of a terrace of six. The houses were high, narrow and dark, like the minds of the men for whom they had been built. Each had three stones plus a basement with a servants' entrance -- the English middle class of the nineteenth century insisted on a servants' entrance, even if they had no servants. Faber was a cynic about the English.
Number Six had been owned by Mr. Harold Garden, of Garden's Tea and Coffee, a small company that went broke in the Depression. Having lived by the principle that in solvency is a mortal sin, the bankrupt Mr. Garden had no option but to die. The house was all he bequeathed to his widow, who was then obliged to take in boarders. She enjoyed being a landlady, although the etiquette of her social circle demanded that she pretend to be a little ashamed of it. Faber had a room on the top floor with a dormer window. He lived there from Monday to Friday, and told Mrs. Garden that he spent weekends with his mother in Erith. In fact, he had another landlady in Blackheath who called him Mr. Baker and believed he was a traveling salesman for a stationery manufacturer and spent all week on the road.
He wheeled his cycle up the garden path under the disapproving frown of the tall front-room windows. He put it in the shed and padlocked it to the lawn mower -- it was against the law to leave a vehicle unlocked. The seed potatoes in boxes all around the shed were sprouting. Mrs. Garden had turned her flower beds over to vegetables for the war effort.
Faber entered the house, hung his hat on the hall-stand, washed his hands and went in to tea.
Three of the other lodgers were already eating: a pimply boy from Yorkshire who was trying to get into the Army; a confectionery salesman with receding sandy hair; and a refired naval officer who, Faber was convinced, was a degenerate. Faber nodded to them and sat down.
The salesman was telling a joke. "So the Squadron Leader says, 'You're back early!' and the pilot turns round and says, 'Yes, I dropped my leaflets in bundles, wasn't that right?' So the Squadron Leader says, 'Good God! You might've hurt somebody!"'
The naval officer cackled and Faber smiled. Mrs. Garden came in with a teapot. "Good evening, Mr. Faber. We started without you -- I hope you don't mind."
Faber spread margarine thinly on a slice of wholemeal bread, and momentarily yearned for a fat sausage. "Your seed potatoes are ready to plant," he told her.
Faber hurried through his tea. The others were arguing over whether Chamberlain should be sacked and replaced by Churchill. Mrs. Garden kept voicing opinions, then looking at Faber for a reaction. She was a blowsy woman, a little overweight. About Faber's age, she wore the clothes of a woman of thirty, and he guessed she wanted another husband. He kept out of the discussion...
Eye of the Needle. Copyright © by Ken Follett. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.I was watching a documentary about thriller movies and it mentioned the 1981 movie "Eye of the Needle" which is based on the book. I found the description fasinating and then the next time I was at B&N I found the book (I wasn't even looking for it).
It is an exciting novel with plot twists and suprises that could almost be plausible. Mix a little bit of history with fiction and you have yourself a roller coster ride. Reading the novel you keep thinking "How is he going to get out of this?" or "Will they get to him in time?" It is a very enjoyable book that I would recommend to anyone. All I have to do now is find the film. :-)
7 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted Wed Jul 25 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Very good book. I was reading Spy Counter-Spy at the saME TIME AND IT WAS INTERESTING HOW ONE BOOK TALKED ABOUT AN INCIDENT AND THE OTHER BOOK CONFIRMED IT (EVEN THOUGH EYE OF THE NEEDLE WAS FICTION AND SPY COUNTER-SPY WAS NOT.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Eye of the Needle was a great book. It was always hard to put down. The Eye of the Needle takes place in world war II. The book plays with your mind a little because it goes into the mind of two main characters. One of the main characters is a professor hired by the British government the other is a Nazi spy. The Nazi spy's codename is the needle named after his stiletto he uses to kill his victims.Faber goes undercover as British civilians and gives out British secrets to Germany through radio. His real name is Faber and even though he kills innocent people and fights for the Nazis he has a conscious. Then there is professor Percival Godliman he is hired by the British government to track down Faber. In the book Percival is always one step behind Faber. Faber finds out crucial information that could effect the outcome of the war. He has to give this to Germany in person and after a series of events he ends up at a woman's house on a island with her husband who is a paralyzed British veteran. They end up falling in love. I give this book a 9 out of 10.
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Mon Feb 20 00:00:00 EST 2012
I had forgotten what a marvelous author Follett is. Great stories and given the background, you learn so much as well. His books are hard to put down.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Well paced and detailed, with interesting, as well as accurate, historical information. Satisfying conflicts, plot and conclusion. Worthwhile purchase.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sun Jan 09 00:00:00 EST 2011
great read
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sat Jun 15 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Tense war drama with a powerful ending. I did like the movie better and recommend seeing it before reading the book.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.An unforgettably brilliant spy novel filled with lots of surprising and exciting twists and turns and gripping raw emotion that keeps you turning pages and prevents you from putting the book down. Another absolutely wonderful story from one of the greatest storytellers of our time.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted Tue May 07 00:00:00 EDT 2013
This book was actually an early work of Follett's and is considerably weaker than his recent excellent material. The first two-hundred pages are boring, with unengaging characters to whom this reader never became attached. Any semblance of action doesn' t occur until the last fifty pages--and then it becomes ridiculous. Follett's usual shortcoming, painting the principal female character as more obsessed with sex than an average issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, is glaringly apparent in this early effort. Even when he also expects her to be a strong and brave character, she can hardly resist some unattached sex.
So if you make it past the first 200 pages the book is mildly entertaining. But don' t expect the outstanding fiction Follett produces as a mature writer.
Anonymous
Posted Wed Mar 27 00:00:00 EDT 2013
“Eye of the Needle” by Ken Follett is a phenomenal spy book. This might fool some but it is not just for those who love thrillers. Not only is it thrilling, set in the timeline of World War II, but it also includes real life situations. It is a great historical fiction novel that tells the story of a questionable character, going by the name of Die Nadel, who is a Nazi spy.
Die Nadel starts out with a mission, one that could change the war forever. Under the Germans’ orders he must find out as much as possible about the other’s plans for attack. The struggle and tension between the Nazis and British Intelligence in this book makes a person wonder who the ‘bad guys’ truly are. Die Nadel’s job makes him travel across Europe, leaving a trail of intense murders for the Intelligence to follow.
All this action is balanced out, entangled with the marriage troubles of a young couple, Lucy and David, and the loss of a professor in the Intelligence.
This novel is a crazy mix of spy chases, emotions, and war that will leave any reader in a state of constant suspense and in an urge to read more.
Anonymous
Posted Tue Mar 19 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Enjoyed it?
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted Wed Jan 30 00:00:00 EST 2013
My mom said this book was amazing and i really want to read it!!!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.AngelM0
Posted Wed Jan 02 00:00:00 EST 2013
Great little twists and turn to this book. The story is told well and is full of imagery.
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Posted Mon Aug 20 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Sleek and economic, this felt like a very contemporary thriller i would certainly recommend it. One of the best I've read. I really enjoyed the World War 2 aspect.
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Posted Wed Jul 18 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Follett is a great storyteller
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Posted Fri Apr 13 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Fun and fastidious.
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Posted Wed Jan 25 00:00:00 EST 2012
gripping.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Follettobsessed
Posted Sat Oct 29 00:00:00 EDT 2011
Not my favorite Follett book. The beginning was a little hard to get into and the romance on Stormy Island was too short. I love when Follett gets into the love scenes and this story really lacked in that area.
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Posted Thu Sep 22 00:00:00 EDT 2011
Enjoyed the plot, but not the depth of his Pillars of the Earth or Fall of Giants.
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Posted Sun Jan 09 00:00:00 EST 2011
Another reviewer mentioned that the writing style of the book focuses on the Germany Spy yet shifts to Lucy is true. In my opinion, this does not diminish the book at all. There is murder and it is done in a stealthy spy way instead of explosions everywhere all the time like a Bond movie. If you want more shooting, etc. read Nelson Demille's "The Talbot Odyssey". These two books are some of the finest spy novels I've read.
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Overview
One enemy spy knows the secret to the Allies' greatest deception, a brilliant aristocrat and ruthless assassin -- code name: "The Needle" -- who holds the key to ultimate Nazi victory.
Only one person stands in his way: a lonely Englishwoman on an isolated island, who is beginning to love the killer who has mysteriously entered her life.
All will come to a terrifying conclusion in Ken Follett's unsurpassed and...