First off, I feel this is a 3.5 but I'm giving it 4, as some of the reviewers on here have been too harsh.

JACKDAWS takes the standard D-Day spy stories but twists it by focusing on the Historical female agents, or, as they were known, something of the unsung heroes.

This particular tale focuses on a female agent who is trying to knock down the phone lines of an SS HQ but needs to do it as cleaning ladies. So, after failing her first attempt, she heads back to the UK where she, and other govt officials, recruit several female agents for training.

All of these women are untrained and have to do a crash course in spycraft.

Thereafter, the next half of the book entails the women parachuting into France, some of them getting caught or killed and then moving in on the mission. Expect the usual "B" love story.

Story is very good in pacing, and, while some of the characters have the archetypal element, I felt he did a good job creating a diverse selection.

When he wrote EYE OF THE NEEDLE the market was less saturated with WWII stories. Now, they're all over the place, so, he has less of the market, the stories overlap more and expectations are higher for newer and newer stories.

This one is above average to good but not quite either in definition. If you want to read him for the first time, I'd recommend EYE OF THE NEEDLE.

At first sight, Jackdaws seems a historical novel, but it is more a book for youngsters. as much as "Hornet Flight" it combines known facts from WWII and fiction, but this time I have more remarks to do:
- you have to be very stupid indeed to assail the castle from Sainte-Cecile, as long as Germans are the masters of the town
- there are too many temporal coincidences, as that of Michael running from the escort and going to the bar immediately after Flick
- it's childish from Paul to suddenly let his toothbrush at the door and Flick to find it...
In any case, however, the style, the action and the characters made the book a pleasant one, so three stars are a good rating indeed.

Another stellar entry into the mind and brilliance of Ken Follett!





Follet brings us back into the chaos and madness of WW2, and again brilliantly narrates a story that is filled with action, with engaging characters, and most incredibly based on real events! A group of British amateur 'spies' are recruited to lead a suicide mission into occupied France, and infiltrate and explode a key communication relay center north of Paris. Their mission is a-la 'Mission Impossible' scenario. 5 women are chosen and led by an experienced resistance fighter 'Flick', and she leads a group of least expected women into a formidable mission! Flick herself is badass, beautiful, and willing to give up anything to flag and country. The other women in the other hand...





Follet again set up a narrative that is filled with action and hyperbole, leading to a crescendo worthy of any hollywood movie! The brilliance in Follett is his ability to express his thoughts elegantly in the most simple way possible! It's a near an impossible trait in a writer, but Follet has masterminded this skillset. His characters are riveting, and there's plenty of violence, some sex and lots of humor in the story. He weaves his characters like chess pieces, and in the end he checkmates without difficulty!

5 Stars

Adoro come Ken Follet effettua ricerche in modo da produrre storie romanzate di fatti reali. In questo caso, abbiamo un libro ambientato nella seconda guerra mondiale che tratta di un gruppo della Resistenza 'Le Gazze Ladre'.
Nonostante non ami particolarmente i libri ambientati nella seconda guerra mondiale, Follet ha un metodo di scrittura così avvincente che cattura il lettore, caratterizzando alla perfezioni i suoi personaggi e facendoti amare anche gli antagonisti.
Il libro è coinvolgente anche per gli intrecci, gli inganni e le strategie messe in campo dalle due fazioni per raggiungere il loro fine. Il susseguirsi di scene d'azione tiene il lettore con il fiato sospeso fino alla fine.

Incredible right up to the end.

I picked this up on holiday because I'd read through the books I'd brought and this was the only one among the English-language secondhand paperbacks at the hotel I thought I could stand. It's okay, for what it is. Follett keeps the adrenaline going, but there's not much else here. The main characters are all impossibly good-looking and/or bursting with raw sexual energy (one can practically cast it with the appropriate Hollywood A-listers as one reads). The plot is full of twists, as one would expect, but the decision to connect it with the D-Day invasion limits the potential for suspense; I mean, we know the invasion happened and it worked, and if the destruction of this telephone exchange plays a role in it then it has to succeed, too, right? The only real question is exactly who will die along the way, and I didn't care about or believe in any of the characters enough to get too anxious about their survival, and most of the deaths were pretty predictable. The book is full of clunky writing. This is just one bad sentence in a book full of bad sentences: "Beautiful women were like the gorgeous French impressionist paintings he collected: having one did not stop you wanting another." Ugh. A stupid cliche, overloaded with adjectives, and quite typical of the book overall. If all you require is adrenalin and you don't care about character or writing or, well, anything else, it's adequate junk reading. Graham Greene and John Le Carre do spy thrillers far, far better, of course, but I'd have been pretty surprised to find a book by either of them in the stack in my Mexican hotel.

Either KF is a dirty old man or he's taken the adage "sex sells" to heart. For a spy novel, there was an awful lot of flirting and crushes and sex — each instance intended to be more shocking than the last. Rather, each was more ridiculous than the last, resulting in sighs and eye rolling. Lots of eye rolling.

When the author wasn't writing amateur porn and got around to writing the spy part of his spy novel, things didn't pick up as much as you'd think. The plot never gets any serious momentum. It's best described as a formulaic cliche: bad guys on the trail of the good guys (or girls in this case) with lots of close calls, but everything turns out just pat (a little too pat) in the end. All the right characters live, all the wrong characters get what's coming to them, and all the characters you feel neutral towards die. You know, to pull at the reader's heart strings and give the plot that necessary hint of realism. Bleh.

A good novel keeps the reader guessing. It at least keeps the reader interested. This pile of cliche and predictability did neither. Only through misguided persistence could I slog through and finish this, and especially at the end, it was only to get it over with already.

Es una novela interesante, con intriga atrapante y con casos reales de mujeres que fueron Utilizadas en la resistencia Francesa de punta de Lanza, Follet investigó y realizó una Excelente Ficción.
Follett explora la psicología humana mostrándonos la complejidad de las relaciones humanas y cómo nuestros sentimientos por los demás pueden influir en nuestras acciones.

Con todo, Alto riesgo es un buen thriller de guerra. Cualquiera que disfrute de una historia trepidante ambientada durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial disfrutará de esta novela.
La novela se centra en Flick (también conocida como Felicity), que dirige a un grupo de agentes secretas femeninas a la Francia ocupada para desactivar una central telefónica demasiado importante. Y si eso no fuera lo suficientemente difícil, los nazis saben que ella vendrá.

Es emotivo, conmovedor e increíblemente descriptivo. Jurarás que estuviste allí y no podrás dejarlo.

I’m not even going to attempt to be diplomatic, so buckle yourselves in because this book made me angry.

Note: I am aware that I am in the minority for this one, as a few people have ungraciously pointed out. Whilst I welcome informed debate, I will not tolerate hateful comments. Please don't take it personally if I block you.

I’m surprised this has such a decent rating. Jackdaws is a grim mockery of the dedication and fierce bravery of the SOE girls. It exploits a very real and turbulent episode in European history, failing to present the complexity of the sacrifice these women were willing to make - many gave their lives. What is marketed as an intense action-packed thriller is nothing more than a completely implausible troupe of women squabbling, bitching about each other, instigating cat fights and hooking up with every volunteer in a fifty mile radius.

Follett’s presentation of women is sickening. The Jackdaws are never established as real characters beyond constant reminders of their sex appeal. Follett has a needless preoccupation with the objectification of women which seems to serve no other purpose than as an attempt to villainise the antagonist or else add some sort of racy element that the unnecessary sex scenes fail to provide (they read like bad smutty fanfic). It’s also obvious that Follett was attempting some shade of free indirect style by sporadically adopting different characters’ voices, but the female perspectives are especially cringey. Follett endows the Jackdaws with stereotypically ‘girly’ lines in an attempt to emulate the female mindset. Hackneyed examples include: “I’m sorry for being such a girl” and the classic, “My bum is too big!”. Look, as a real life (cisgender) female, I can testify that the size of my arse would be the last thing on my mind if I were facing the prospect of imminent capture and torture.

I guess Jackdaws is supposed to be some groundbreaking feminist masterpiece simply because it puts women center stage amid the androcentricity of war - but to me, the Jackdaws are hardly the epitome of ‘strong female characters’. Flick is nothing but a fighting machine with breasts, ( “a tiny bundle of sex appeal” and yes, that is an actual line) something which apparently makes her an undisputed feminist. Although other characters frequently supply helpful asides about how brave, intelligent, [insert other stereotype here] she is, Flick never does anything to justify these claims. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for female empowerment, but I thoroughly disagree with how Follett went about it. Jackdaws heavily insinuates that for a woman to be on an equal footing with men, she must be endowed with masculine qualities to make her like a man, and/or the men around her need to be degraded to incompetent idiots. To me, this completely contradicts the concept of gender equality and it's not fair - on men or women. Strong in the sense of physicality or capability is only one side of the coin; a character needs some level of vulnerability and empathy otherwise they will never have the need to be brave, or indeed strong. Being able to fire a gun alone does not make you brave or admirable. Besides, a primitive lust for violence is not a particularly appealing trait in anyone.

Every character was achingly stale and prone to stereotype. Flick was a ripoff of Nancy Wake, the openly bawdy SOE agent, complete with a French lover and a codename that I assume was supposed to be lyrical like ‘The White Mouse’... but ‘Leopardess’ was just so obviously sultry that it had me snorting my disapproval. Other characters were defined entirely by their sexuality. It’s honourable that the effort was made to represent LGBTQ+, but these moments are so sporadic and contrived it feels to me as though Follett was trying too hard to be inclusive without actually doing the LGBTQ+ characters justice. These characters have no other values or traits other than their sexuality which does a disservice to both the characters themselves as well as the author. Is there a need to simply label a character as LGBTQ, tick a box, and have them play no other function in the story? People are more than just their sexuality. Ultimately, none of the characters were particularly likeable... besides from the antagonist and his sidekick. You know there’s a problem when you find yourself rooting unconditionally for the killer.

Jackdaws reads like a bad action movie. The writing is, quite honestly, appalling; it’s ameteur and brimming with clunky phrases. My favourite lines included: “Your security stinks.” and 'The torture chamber gave him the creeps.' The juvenile prose is incongruous with the tidbits of historical exposition which feel like transcribed verbatim excerpts from documentaries. This is in many ways a research-heavy piece, and certain scenes were obviously orchestrated with no other purpose than as an opportunity for Follett to show off how much research he’d done rather than offering any helpful insight into the story or moving the plot forward. Jackdaws is also full of specious and convenient plot twists; Follett is excessively melodramatic and uses numerous close calls in an attempt to build tension and suspense - but it only belies the gravity of the situation. Inevitably, this all builds up to a saccharine happy ending. Something that should've been emotionally compelling, wasn’t.

Jackdaws is junk reading. If you like badly written Harlequin Romances masquerading as gritty espionage, give it a go. This was, quite simply, the thriller that failed to thrill.

এসপিওনাজ এজেন্টরা কীভাবে কাজ করে, কীভাবে তথ্য সংগ্রহ করে ঘুষ কিংবা হুমকি প্রদশর্নের মাধ্যমে এবং প্রতিপক্ষ সেটা কীভাবে কাউন্টার দেয় তার কনক্রিট বর্ণনা আছে বইটায়।

এই করতে গিয়ে বইটা হয়ে গেছে একটু স্লো। তবে তা ধর্তব্যের মধ্যে না আনলেও চলবে৷ এসপিওনাজ প্রসেসগুলো আসলেই এরকম স্লো হওয়াই স্বাভাবিক।

মাসুদ রানা, জেমস বন্ড বা জেসন বর্ন যেরকম ঘাপাঘাপ তথ্য পেয়ে যায়, পেয়ে বর্ণিল একশনে নেমে পড়ে; বাস্তবে কি আসলেই এত সহজ এসপিওনাজ জগৎ??

না, এত সহজ নয়। একেকটা ইন্টেলের জন্য অপেক্ষা করতে হয়, দিনের পর দিন ওৎ পেতে থাকতে হয় কিংবা নজরে রাখতে হয় কোনো মানুষকে। এরপর ফাঁদ পেতে ধরার পরে যদি দেখা যায় ভুল লোককে ধরা হয়েছে, তবে পুরো প্রক্রিয়া আবার শুরু থেকে শুরু করতে হবে।

দ্বিতীয় বিশ্বযুদ্ধে ৪৪ দিনের যুদ্ধে পরাজয় ঘটে হেভিওয়েট তকমা নিয়ে দাপট দেখানো ফ্রান্সের। নাজিদের হাতে পরাজিত ফ্রান্স তখন একরকম নাজিদের ঘরবাড়িই হয়ে গেছে। সেইন্ট সেসিল শ্যাতো একসময় ফরাসি অভিজাতদের জন্য বানানো হলেও এখন সেটি জার্মানদের টেলিফোন এক্সচেঞ্জ। ফ্রান্সে আসা সমস্ত টেলিফোন কল অপারেট করা হয় এই এক্সচেঞ্জের মাধ্যমে। এই শ্যাতো উড়িয়ে দেয়া তাই মিত্রবাহিনীর জন্য গুরুত্বপূর্ণ, কারণ এগিয়ে আসছে নরমান্ডি ইনভেশনের দিন। সেসিল শ্যাতো গুড়িয়ে দিতে পারলে জার্মানদের কোমর ভেঙ্গে দেয়া যাবে।

অপারেশনের দায়িত্বে ফিমেল এজেন্ট ফেলিসিটি ক্লারিয়েট। আর তার অপোনেন্ট জার্মান মেজর ফ্রাঙ্ক ডিটার। কাহিনির বিস্তারিত আলোচনা করতে চাই না।

ফেলিসিটি ক্লারিয়েট ওরফে ফ্লিক পুরো উপন্যাস জুড়েই দারুণ উপস্থিতি দেখিয়েছে। তবে প্রোটাগনিস্ট হিসেবেই বোধহয় লেখক কিছু জায়গায় তাকে ওভারেটেড বানিয়েছেন।

মেজর ফ্রাঙ্ক ডিটার, এন্টাগনিস্ট হিসেবে আর কোনো চরিত্র মনে হয় এতোটা প্রভাব বিস্তার করতে পারতো না! স্বভাবগত জার্মান বুদ্ধিমত্তা, ধূর্ততা, রিমান্ডে তার সুকৌশলী হিংস্রতা, প্রখর ডিটেকটিভ মাইন্ড সব মিলিয়ে এই চরিত্রটিই বেশি ভালো লেগেছে।

স্পয়লার এলার্ট অন:
বইয়ের শেষে ডিটার যেভাবে হেরে যায় ফ্লিকের কাছে, এটা একদম অবাস্তব হয়েছে। যেম স্রেফ ভিলেনকে হারতে হবে, ডিটার তাই হারলো। ডিটারের পতন আরেকটু বাস্তবসম্মত করাই যেত।

স্পয়লার এলার্ট অফ।

অনুবাদ প্রসঙ্গে বলতে হয় অত্যন্ত সুন্দর অনুবাদ। ইমতিয়াজ আজাদের অনুবাদ নিয়ে সন্দেহ বা আপত্তির কোনো জায়গা নেই। অনুবাদ ৫/৫

J’ai découvert Ken Follett avec Les piliers de la Terre, après avoir visionné la série du même nom. J’avais beaucoup aimé cette dernière, peut-être un peu moins le roman, très dense et truffé d’informations trop techniques sur la religion et la construction des cathédrales. J’avoue que je craignais cette densité en me lançant dans Le réseau Corneille mais à ma grande surprise, le style n’est pas du tout le même. Le rythme est bien plus dynamique et je ne me suis pas ennuyée une seconde.

Le récit prend place à la fin de la 2nde Guerre Mondiale, quelques jours avant le débarquement des troupes alliées en Normandie. La Résistance s’est mise en tête de détruire un centre de communication allemand, cible primordiale pour faciliter la dernière grande bataille. Pour cela, Betty monte une équipe d’agents féminins qui se feront passer pour des femmes de ménage. Ken Follett suit alternativement Betty et le major Dieter Franck, un officier allemand obsédé par l’idée de paralyser la Résistance dans tout le nord de la France.

Même s’il est vrai qu’il est assez attendu, c’est un face à face très prenant que l’auteur nous propose ici. Betty est une femme expérimentée, celle qui a passé le plus de temps en France dans la clandestinité. Elle est dotée d’un instinct très sûr, qui va lui sauver maintes fois la vie. C’est une meneuse née, sensible aux caractères bien différents des femmes qui vont se retrouver sous ses ordres. Bien sûr, on n’échappe pas à l’histoire d'amour avec le bel Américain à demi estropié, mais cela ne prend heureusement pas le pas sur l’intrigue.

En parallèle, on découvre le major Franck, officier aux fortes convictions. Persuadé d’être dans le vrai, il considère les tortures qu’il fait subir aux Résistants comme un passage obligé pour obtenir la vérité et des informations visant à protéger ses hommes et son pays. Marié en Allemagne mais amoureux d’une jeune Française, il va se laisser emporter, d’abord par une certaine soif de gloire puis par son désir de vengeance et enfin son obsession de capturer Betty. Ainsi, cet homme “pas si mauvais” (avec d’énormes guillemets, attention) va s’abandonner au monstre qui sommeille en lui.

Le rythme de l’intrigue est assez lent jusqu’à la constitution de l’équipe de Betty et pourtant, c’est passé en un clin d’œil. J’ai dévoré toute la deuxième partie ! On est pris dans l’urgence de la situation de ces Corneilles dont la mission doit à tout prix être réalisée avant le débarquement. L’affrontement des deux personnages principaux est captivant et met en balance les enjeux de chaque camp, tout en rendant un bel hommage à ces femmes qui se sont battues comme des hommes durant la 2nde Guerre Mondiale. Une très belle découverte.

A team of undercover British female spies parachutes into occupied France to infiltrate and sabotage Nazi efforts during WW2. The premise is almost too good to mess up. And yet Follett nearly succeeds in messing it up! 2.5 stars. Gripes below.

On its face this sounds like it’s high on the women’s power scale, right? No! It’s oddly misogynistic and patronizing. Although described as clever, in many ways the heroine Flick is a wilting flower who regularly cries on the job, needs her boss’s paternalistic validation and, despite her military rank, hugs her underlings. It is irrelevant that this story takes place in the 1940s. This woman would not do these things. Don’t even get me started on the part where her love interest (who is also her boss, gag) literally flies in to save her from danger. Follett is a man writing from a woman’s POV but apparently does not understand real women in the least. Sorry, not sorry, bro.

Do people think of Follett as a good writer? Here are two paragraphs that are one page apart:

“Flick was bitterly disappointed. This was no good. Greta would have just as much of a German accent when she spoke French.”

“Flick was painfully disappointed. Greta would have been the last piece in the jigsaw, the woman who made the team complete. Now the mission was in doubt again.”

Come on, Kenny. In addition to the laughably half-hearted attempt to use Word’s built-in thesaurus (bitterly disappointed/painfully disappointed), this is the same uninspired paragraph!

Finally, I found a typo, which tbh was the biggest thrill I got from the book. Chapter 40, second paragraph, “He wanted [to] be in Reims.” This is likely the editor’s mistake, but I’m kind of fired up and am happy to slap Ken with the [sic].