During World War II the Allies went to extraordinary lengths to make the Nazis believe the coming invasion would be at Calais, not Normandy. They used plywood artillery and inflatable dummy tanks and other faux constructions to fool the Nazis from the air. But from the ground these were obvious fakes. Had one German agent been able to get near these dummy forces on the ground, the deception--crucial to the success of D-Day--wouldn't have worked. The premise of this espionage thriller asks, what if an operative had learned the truth?
The book weaves in three narrative strands that eventually converge. There's the German spy Heinrich, known as "the Needle" who is cunning and a ruthless killer who had been established in England even before the war. There's Professor Percival Godliman, medieval historian turned spycatcher and his subordinate Frederick Bloggs. And then there's the hero of the story--Lucy Rose. A lonely and unloved wife on Storm Island off the Scottish coast.
That alone makes this stand out among the list of a couple of dozen suspense novels I've been reading off a recommendation list. A friend of mine calls them "dick-lit" for good reason. All too often they're drenched in testosterone and the women either femme fatales or damsels-in-distress. A courageous and resourceful female character like Lucy is a rarity in the genre. I also liked how vividly Follet conjured up wartime Britain. This isn't the kind of book that impresses with a striking prose style or complex characters or a surprising twist. But this is a fast-paced, suspenseful and engrossing thriller I gobbled up pretty much in one sitting.
