In an interview on Chase Stories

This is another terrific chase story with a bit more characterisation, Ken Follett’s first really big success as an author. It’s interesting because the protagonist is a German spy who has to transmit important information to Germany and he goes on the run to try to do it. He knows the British are staking out the locations of the D-Day landings and he is trying to get that information to Germany until the very end, when he falls in love. And the woman he falls in love with on a remote island in Scotland, is charged with tracking him down and killing him. Follett brings in more elements of psychology and of love and love gone wrong – the woman he falls in love with is the wife of a paralysed man and he tells some of that backstory, but again it’s a fascinating chase story with psycho-drama. It is fantastic. You’re in a weird position of wanting the German spy to fail, but at the same time you can’t help admiring his cleverness even though he is a psychopath.

In an interview on Favourite Thrillers

Next up is the Second World War thriller Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett, about a German spy on the run code-named “the Needle”.

This book was my introduction to the spy thriller. I had read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy before that. But Eye of the Needle was a thriller as opposed to a spy novel.

What do you think is the difference?

John le Carré is very cerebral. There is an intellectual puzzle of trying to figure out who the characters are. Eye of the Needle was an out-and-out chase thriller. The plot is about whether the English intelligence officer will catch “the Needle” before he completely changes the course of the Second World War. And even though you know how the war ends, Follett manages to keep up this incredible adrenaline all the way through the story because the villain is so brilliant and tenacious.

What makes him such a mesmerising character?

First, he is ruthless. He can get out of almost any scrape. He is like the dark side of James Bond. Another thing Follett does which I found really effective is introduce a heroine who is a completely ordinary housewife with nothing going for her. She is very unhappy, yet she ends up being the one who brings down “the Needle”. That is what I love – a downtrodden character who is not a classic heroine ends up becoming the heroine after all. It’s a wonderful example of an ordinary person doing something extraordinary.