Jackdaws - Wyrms.de

454 pages

English language

Published Sept. 19, 2001 by Macmillan.

ISBN:: 978-0-333-78302-3

(1 review)

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 …

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. . .

20 editions

Kadomi reviewed Jackdaws by Ken Follett

Review of 'Jackdaws' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Almost 3.5 stars but not quite. My SO loves Ken Follett books, and I did greatly enjoy his historical novels. I try to veer away from war time novels and political thrillers, so reading this book was a departure for me.

Jackdaws is set in 1944, shortly before D Day. The main protagonist is Felicity Clairet aka Flick, a British spy who works in France together with the French Resistance, her husband Michel being the local leader in Reims. Their target is a chateau in the hands of the Gestapo, serving as major telephone exchange in France. The goal is to destroy the exchange and that way destroy their communications during the Allied invasion. When an initial attack fails, Flick comes up with a plan to infiltrate the chateau dressed as cleaning women, which requires an all-women team: the Jackdaws. The unlikely team has a cast of different women: a …

Almost 3.5 stars but not quite. My SO loves Ken Follett books, and I did greatly enjoy his historical novels. I try to veer away from war time novels and political thrillers, so reading this book was a departure for me.

Jackdaws is set in 1944, shortly before D Day. The main protagonist is Felicity Clairet aka Flick, a British spy who works in France together with the French Resistance, her husband Michel being the local leader in Reims. Their target is a chateau in the hands of the Gestapo, serving as major telephone exchange in France. The goal is to destroy the exchange and that way destroy their communications during the Allied invasion. When an initial attack fails, Flick comes up with a plan to infiltrate the chateau dressed as cleaning women, which requires an all-women team: the Jackdaws. The unlikely team has a cast of different women: a drag queen, a lesbian aristocrat, an older explosives specialist, a murderer freed from prison for the mission, amongst others.

The summary sounds more exciting than the book turned out to be. It took til around the 60% mark for the mission to actually begin. A lot of time was wasted on getting the team together, to weave in sexual encounters that didn't do anything for me plot and character-wise. Despite the team sounding super-interesting in theory, characters fell very flat for me. Very one-note. No time was taken to form any emotional connection to them, didn't really work.

The only character aside from Flick that much time was spent on is the nemesis, Major Dieter Franck, Flick's Nazi adversary. Follett tried to make him seem very human, not your average evil Nazi, but again, he kinda felt flat for me.

That said, the last 40 percent of the book were a quick read and the actual mission was quite exciting to read, so overall it's almost 3.5 stars but not quite.

Subjects

World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- France -- Fiction.
Women in war -- France -- Fiction.