← Back to discovery

Jackdaws

Ken Follett

2001416 pagesabout 6–10 hours
2001
first published
  • 2001Dutton · ENGISBN 9780739422991
  • 2001Dutton · 451 pages · ENGISBN 9780525946281
  • 2002Chivers Press · 544 pages · ENGISBN 9780754017592
  • 2002Pan · 595 pages · ENGISBN 9780330487382
  • 2002Random House · 674 pages · ENGISBN 9780375431593
  • 2005Bastei Lübbe · ENGISBN 9783404264568
  • 2006NAL Trade · 416 pages · ENGISBN 9780451219596
  • 2019Pan Books · ENGISBN 9781509865420

D-Day is approaching. They don’t know where or when, but the Germans know it’ll be soon, and for Felicity “Flick” Clariet, the stakes have never been higher. A senior agent in the ranks of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) responsible for sabotage, Flick has survived to become one of Britain’s most effective operatives in Northern France. She knows that the Germans’ ability to thwart the Allied attack depends upon their lines of communications, and in the days before the invasion no target is of greater strategic importance than the largest telephone exchange in Europe. But when Flick and her Resistance-leader husband try a direct, head-on assault that goes horribly wrong, her world turns upside down. Her group destroyed, her husband missing, her superiors unsure of her, her own confidence badly shaken, she has one last chance at the target, but the challenge, once daunting, is now near impossible. The new plan requires an all-woman team, none of them professionals, to be assembled and trained within days. Code-named the Jackdaws, they will attempt to infiltrate the exchange under the noses of the Germans—but the Germans are waiting for them now and have plans of their own. There are secrets Flick does not know—secrets within the German ranks, secrets among her hastily recruited team, secrets among those she trusts the most. And as the hours tick down to the point of no return, most daunting of all, there are secrets within herself. . .

How it feels

AtmosphereBleak

How it reads

Worth knowing

ViolenceFrequent

When and where

ThemesWar

Content notes

  • Warmoderateunreviewed
How do you feel?