''Eye of the Needle'' is a spy thriller novel written by Welsh author

Ken Follett Kenneth Martin Follett, (born 5 June 1949) is a British author of thrillers and historical novels who has sold more than 160 million copies of his works. Many of his books have achieved high ranking on best seller lists. For example, in the ...

. It was originally published in 1978 by the

Penguin Group Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initia ...

under the title ''Storm Island''. This novel was Follett's first successful, best-selling effort as a novelist, and it earned him the 1979

Edgar Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...

for Best Novel from the

Mystery Writers of America Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is an organization of mystery and crime writers, based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday. It presents the Edgar Award ...

. The revised title is an allusion to the " eye of a needle"

aphorism An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by ...

. The book was made into a motion picture of the same title in 1981, starring

Donald Sutherland Donald McNichol Sutherland (born 17 July 1935) is a Canadian actor whose film career spans over six decades. He has been nominated for nine Golden Globe Awards, winning two for his performances in the television films '' Citizen X'' (1995) a ...

, with a screenplay adapted by

Stanley Mann Stanley Mann (August 8, 1928 – January 11, 2016) was a Canadian screenwriter. Born in Toronto, Ontario, he began his writing career in 1951 at CBC Radio, and was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the 1965 film '' The Collector'', based on ...

and directed by Richard Marquand.

Plot summary

In 1940, Henry Faber, a German spy nicknamed 'die Nadel' ('The Needle') due to his trademark weapon being a stiletto, is working at a

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

railway depot, collecting information on troop movements. Faber is halfway through radioing this information to Berlin when his widowed landlady stumbles into his room hoping for intimacy. Faber fears that Mrs. Garden will eventually realise that he was using a transmitter and that he is a spy, so he kills her with his stiletto, then resumes his transmission. David, a trainee

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

pilot, and his bride Lucy are on their honeymoon when they're involved in a car crash. David loses the use of both his legs. Unable to fly during the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...

, David grows embittered and he and Lucy retire to the isolated Storm Island (fictitious) off the east coast of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. Meanwhile, British Intelligence has executed or recruited all German spies except Faber. A widowed history professor, Godliman, and an ex-policeman, Bloggs, are employed by

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...

to catch him. They start with the interrupted broadcast and his codename ''Die Nadel''. They connect the landlady's murder to Faber by him having used his 'needle' during the transmission. They then interview Faber's fellow tenants from 1940. One identifies Faber from a photo of him as a young army officer. Faber is told by Berlin to investigate the

First United States Army Group First United States Army Group (often abbreviated FUSAG) was a fictitious (paper command) Allied Army Group in World War II prior to D-Day, part of Operation Quicksilver, created to deceive the Germans about where the Allies would land in Fr ...

(FUSAG) military base. He takes photos and discovers it is a dummy and has merely been constructed to look real from the air. Several soldiers try to arrest him but he kills them with his stiletto. Realising that FUSAG being fake implies that the D-Day landings will be in Normandy rather than around Calais, Faber heads for

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), a ...

, Scotland, where a

U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare ro ...

will take him and his photos back to Germany. Godliman and Bloggs realise what Faber is trying to achieve and chase him across

Northern England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angles, Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Scandinavian York, K ...

and Scotland. Faber escapes many times but his repeated killings allow MI5 to track him to Aberdeen. Both

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

and

Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...

are informed that Faber has the critical information. In Aberdeen, Faber steals a small trawler and sets out to meet the U-boat. Caught by a fierce storm, he is shipwrecked on Storm Island, collapsing near the isolated house where David and Lucy live. Lucy nurses him back to health. Stuck in a loveless marriage to the crippled David, she begins a physical relationship with Faber. David soon discovers both Lucy's infidelity and Faber's FUSAG photos. David confronts Faber, but after a struggle Faber kills David by rolling him off a cliff, and tells Lucy it was another accident. However, she discovers her husband's body and realises the truth. Faber realises he may be caught before leaving the island and so tries to radio the information about FUSAG directly to Germany. Lucy stops him by short-circuiting the electricity in the cottage. By the logic which had guided his actions throughout his career, Faber should have killed Lucy – but he finds himself unable to do so, being deeply in love with her to the detriment of his mission and of simple self-preservation. Unable to send a radio message, Faber attempts to descend the cliff and swim to the waiting U-boat. Lucy throws a rock down at him, striking him and causing him to lose his balance and fall to his death. An RAF patrol plane then appears and drives the U-boat away. A fictitious radio message is sent with Faber's call code, convincing the Germans that the invasion is targeting Calais. Bloggs comforts the widowed Lucy.

List of characters

* Henry Faber – "Die Nadel", also called The Needle, a German spy * David Rose – young

fighter pilot * Lucy Rose – David Rose's wife * Billy Parkin – young soldier who identified Faber * Percival Godliman – history professor, recruited to

* Frederick Bloggs – policeman, seconded to

Inspiration

Operation Fortitude Operation Fortitude was the code name for a World War II military deception employed by the Allied nations as part of an overall deception strategy (code named ''Bodyguard'') during the build-up to the 1944 Normandy landings. Fortitude was di ...

was an Allied counter-intelligence operation run during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Its goal was to convince the German military that the planned

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

landings were to occur at

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. Th ...

and not

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

. As a part of Fortitude the fictitious

(FUSAG) was created. FUSAG used fake tanks, aircraft, buildings and radio traffic to create an illusion of an army being formed to land at Calais. The controversial American General

George S. Patton George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, and the Third United States Army in France ...

was given command of this 'army' which also influenced the German military. As Follet notes in the foreword to the novel, if the deception had been discovered the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe would have become more difficult.

Film reference

In the film '' The Iron Lady'' there is a scene in which the retired

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

is shown reading ''Eye of the Needle''. The Bollywood movie '' Fanaa'' is loosely based on the book, moved to a contemporary Indian location. The role of the German spy Faber being taken by a

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

i separatist militant seeking to gain a nuclear weapon, while the role of Lucy is given to a Kashmiri girl who loves the militant yet ends up killing him. Another Bollywood movie ''

Right Yaaa Wrong ''Right Yaaa Wrong'' () is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller film directed by Neeraj Pathak, starring Sunny Deol and Irrfan Khan along with Konkona Sen Sharma, Isha Koppikar, Aryan Vaid and Govind Namdeo. This film was shot in Film Cit ...

'' is also loosely based on the book.

Critical reception

On November 5, 2019, the ''

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadc ...

'' listed ''Eye of the Needle'' on its list of the 100 most inspiring novels.

References

External links

Ken Follett's Eye of the Needle – official site

Ken Follett discusses ''Eye of the Needle''
on the BBC ''

World Book Club ''World Book Club'' is a radio programme on the BBC World Service. Each edition of the programme, which is broadcast on the first Saturday of the month with repeats into the following Monday, features a famous author discussing one of his or her ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Eye of the Needle 1978 British novels Novels by Ken Follett Novels set during World War II Edgar Award-winning works Secret histories British novels adapted into films Aberdeen in fiction