BENGALURU: Ken Follett’s Eye of The Needle is the best thriller ever written. I made this bold announcement with a group of regular readers of thrillers, mystery and detection. We didn’t have an agreement – some mentioned the popular The Day of the Jackal or The Silence of the Lambs. Some forwarded the claims of the lesser known, The Brotherhood of the Rose and The Shadow of the Wind. But none in the forum thought that I was ridiculous with my suggestion.
The spy novel is a fascinating genre – I think Graham Greene’s seat should be among the best that English Literature has to offer, and I would go to war with anyone who criticises John Le Carre. Their spy novels, though, are not necessarily thrillers. Ken Follett, before being famous as a writer of humongous, labyrinthine and fascinating medieval historical epics, was one of the best in the spy-thriller genre. Eye of the Needle was one of the first novels written by him.
History says that the D-Day Normandy Invasion by the Allied forces was an overnight landing on Normandy in the northern coast of France through air and sea. This was one of the most critical and decisive invasions by the Allied forces against Hitler’s Axis forces. As most successful wartime attacks go, the build-up to D-Day involved subterfuge and surprise.
Eye of the Needle starts in around 1943-44, the months before the Normandy Invasion. The Allied forces plot to divert the attention of the Axis army and make them believe that the attack is planned at Calais rather than Normandy. If the majority of the Axis forces are engaged in the defence of Calais, they cannot come to the defence of Normandy during the invasion, since the two regions were separated by the river Seine. Therefore, the Allied create a fake army base (with inflatable model tanks and dummy airplanes) in Norfolk, their base closest to Calais, such that aerial images would indicate a raid being planned.
In a seemingly disconnected event, Lucy gets married to David Rose, an RAF pilot. Misfortune strikes them very soon after, they get into a car accident. Lucy is unharmed, but David gets both his legs amputated. To recuperate and restore their lives, they move to Storm Island, beyond the Scottish East Coast. It is a lonely place, with only an elderly shepherd for company.
Henry Faber is a German spy in Britain. Renowned as the best in the business, he works under the alias of ‘Die Nadel’, German for ‘The Needle’ – his choice of murder weapon is the stilletto. A shadowy, mysterious figure, he has been under the radar of the British Intelligence for a long time. At the behest of the Germans, he discovers the ruse of the Calais attack. He tries to send the information to Germany a couple of times through radio or via a courier, but is thwarted. He decides that this is too critical an information to post or relay to his superiors, and that he will travel to Germany and hand over the information.
The British Intelligence has at last got wind of Die Nadel, and they know the information he is carrying – the fate of the World War 2 hinges on that one bit of information. But Faber is the best spy that Germany has for a reason. He evades the British repeatedly, eventually managing to get to Aberdeen, Scotland where a boat awaits to take him to the other side. As fate would have it, there is a violent storm at sea, and the boat is destroyed. Faber is washed ashore to Storm Island. And the fate of the war is at the hands of a young, healing English couple.
My favourite thrillers are the ones where the story grips you quickly, but the bursts of action are controlled, and serve the purpose of building up the tension to a crescendo. Good thrillers have a great story, great action sequences and great characters. Ken Follett is excellent at building real, believable characters. And it all comes together perfectly in this compact, compelling thriller.