Eye of the Needle
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season352 pages, about 7 hours: about the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbIn 1940 the spy Faber sends coded reports from a London boarding house, before the 1944 hunt for him begins.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live byIn 10 reviews from critics and book blogs, 9 credit the plot and 2 credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesKirkus calls it the best spy debut since The Day of the Jackal, on the shelf at 416 pages.
The case for it
on the plotting
“As a piece of mechanical engineering it’s faultless”
a Substack review on the Needle
“Not a glitzy James Bond type, but a gray man, doing a gray job”
five stars · a book blog on three perspectives
“a key reason for that is Follett’s decision to tell his story from three perspectives”
a book blog on the suspense
“an excellent job of creating suspense, of setting a scene with a few choice details”
a Substack review
The case against
on the side characters
“there seem to rather too many interchangeable MI5 officers, policemen, coastguards and RAF officers”
a book blog on the romance
“badly marred by explicit sex and explicit sentimentality”
Unsigned review · Kirkus Reviews, 1978 on the epilogue
“I thought the Epilogue was contrived and unnecessary to the story”
a book blog on Professor Godliman
“a little more character development would have been welcome”
a book blog
