Ken Follett Novels

Jackdaws by Ken Follett

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 oe 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....

Filled with the powerful storytelling, unforgettable characters, and authentic detail that have become his hallmarks, Jackdaws is Ken Follett writing at the height of his powers.

 

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Ken Follett, internationally-acclaimed master of split-second suspense, author of six #1 bestsellers, reaches beyond the expected to achieve his most brilliant and remarkable novel. The epic story of the building of a cathedral in 12th century England and the lives of the people entwined with it and each other is a sensuous, enduring narrative, and a gripping tale of faith, ambition, bloodshed and betrayal.

 

Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

"The Needle" is an agent hired by Hitler who must find his way back to Germany from Great Britain with a secret that could defeat the D-Day landing.

 

A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follett

In 1866, tragedy strikes at the exclusive Windfield School. A young student drowns in a mysterious accident involving a small circle of boys. The drowning and its aftermath initiates a spiraling circle of treachery that will span three decades and entwine many loves... From the exclusive men's club and brothels that cater to every dark desire of London's upper classes to the dazzling ballrooms and mahogany-paneled suites of the manipulators of the world's wealth, Ken Follett conjures up a stunning array of contrasts. This breathtaking novel portrays a family splintered by lust, bound by a shared legacy... men and women swept toward a perilous climax where greed, fed by the shocking truth of a boy's death, must be stopped, or not just one man's dreams, but those of a nation, will die...

 

The Third Twin by Ken Follett

Amazon.com
Identical twins have been the storyteller's friend since Roman times. Master-scribbler Ken Follett does the arrangement one better in his latest yarn, The Third Twin. The heroine, Jeannie Ferrami, is a young professor at Jones Falls University (JFU)(think Johns Hopkins) who is investigating the balance of nature versus nurture in criminality. Driven by a secret from her past, Dr. Ferrami is overjoyed to find that a straight-arrow law student at JFU has an identical twin (raised separately) who is a convicted rapist. She is not overjoyed, however, when that man is arrested for raping her best friend. Surely Mr. Perfect couldn't be guilty--enter the evil masterminds, three Nixon-era compadres who have been toiling for decades to make America safe for racial purity. It's bad enough that one of the conspirators is Dr. Ferrami's boss, but another is eyeing the Oval Office. The young professor has stumbled onto a secret that could ruin them all, and it's only a matter of pages before bad things start to happen to the pair. The shortest distance between two points is a Follett plot. Look elsewhere for subtlety; entertainment, we got.

 

The Modigliani Scandal by Ken Follett

A bright young art student follows the trail of an undiscovered masterpiece by Modigliani as two disgruntled artists concoct a scheme to expose the hypocrisy of the art world. The ambitious owner of a new gallery will stop at nothing to assure the success of his enterprise in Follett's bestselling thriller--an exquisite blending of suspense, intrigue and blind ambition.

 

Code to Zero by Ken Follett

Amazon.com
Veteran thriller writer Ken Follett (Eye of the Needle, The Third Twin, The Key to Rebecca) turns in another nifty story of espionage, deceit, and betrayal, a fast-paced read with "bestseller" written all over it. A man wakes up in a Washington, D.C., train station in 1958, shortly before the launch of Explorer I, America's first space satellite, with no idea who he is or how he got there. And in less than a few hours, it's clear that someone doesn't want him to find out. He's dressed like a bum, and he looks like he's been on a bender. But he's remarkably skillful at evading pursuit, obscuring his tracks, stealing a car, and breaking into a house. He's not sure how he came by those talents, and it worries him:
"I wonder if I'm honest?" Maybe it was foolish, he thought, to pour out his heart to a whore on the street, but he had no one else. "Am I a loyal husband and a loving father and a reliable workmate? Or am I some kind of gangster? I hate not knowing."
"Honey, if that's what's bothering you, I know what kind of guy you are already. A gangster would be thinking, am I rich, do I slay the broads, are people scared of me?"

That was a point. Luke nodded. But he was not satisfied. "It's one thing to want to be a good person--but maybe I don't live up to what I believe in."

But he does, and it's that firm interior moral compass that keeps him on track through the novel's most fascinating pages as he solves the puzzle of who he really is: Claude "Luke" Lucas, a renowned rocket scientist who was en route from Cape Canaveral to Washington to warn someone in the Pentagon about something he also can't remember, even with the help of some of his oldest friends. Like Anthony Carroll, a CIA agent who apparently has proof that Luke's been sabotaging the fledgling American space program and working for the Russians. And Billie Josephson, the woman Luke once loved, who happens to be an expert in brainwashing and memory loss. And Elspeth, Luke's mathematician wife, who'll do almost anything to save his life.
This is one of Follett's strongest books in years. The flashbacks bring the story of the idealistic young collegians from World War II into 1958, nicely setting up the action in an exciting, solidly plotted, and suspenseful read that grabs the reader by the throat in the first paragraph and doesn't let up until the last.

 

Lie Down With Lions by Ken Follett

Follett takes listeners on a harrowing chase across the ice-shrouded mountains of Afghanistan as a tale of deadly intrigue and even deadlier love unfolds.

 

Triple by Ken Follett

As Egypt comes closer to developing a nuclear device, Israel hatches a plot to steal uranium and even the balance of power by quickly building its own nuke.

 

A Place Called Freedom by Ken Follett

Sentenced to a life of misery in the Scottish coal mines, twenty-one-year-old Mack McAsh hungers for escape. His only ally: beautiful high-born Lizzie Hallim, who is trapped in her own kind of hell.
In 1766, from the teeming streets of London to the infernal hold of a slave ship headed for the American colonies to a sprawling Virginia plantation, two restless young people, separated by politics and position, are bound by their search for a place called freedom....

 

The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett

A Nazi agent possesses the secret that will open the doors of Cairo to Rommel's advancing army. Only two people can stop him--a down-on-his-luck English officer and a beautiful Jewish girl who serves as bait.

 

Night over Water by Ken Follett

It is September 1939--the eve of WWII. England is caught in the throes of war with Nazi Gemany. In Southhampton, the legendary Pan Am Clipper, the worlds most luxurious airliner, is ready for its flight to neutral America. The passengers include both the cream of society and the dregs of humanity. But they cannot the flee the danger that awaits them in the air--a storm of violence and intrigue that will ensure them a memorable journey! Once again, Ken Follett delivers a thrilling ride from the opening page to the shattering climax.

 

Paper Money by Ken Follett

Paper Money is a tautly woven, intriguing story of a single day in the life of the London Evening Post. As various stories break--the awarding of an oil-drilling contract, a mammoth cash robbery, the blackmailing of a politician--awkward questions begin to tie the events together, but will the full story ever make the headlines?

 

The Man from St. Petersburg by Ken Follett

His name was Feliks. He came to London to commit a murder that would change history. A master manipulator, he had many weapons at his command, but against him were ranged the whole of the English police, a brilliant and powerful lord, and the young Winston Churchill himself...

 

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Ken Follett had long been a staple of the bestseller lists for his novels of intrigue and espionage. Then came The Pillars of the Earth, a grand novel of epic storytelling that readers and critics quickly hailed as his crowning achievement. Now, The Pillars of the Earth is available for the first time to a new audience of readers, in this attractive new trade paperback edition.
In 12th-century England, the building of a mighty Gothic cathedral signals the dawn of a new age. This majestic creation will bond clergy and kings, knights and peasants together in a story of toil, faith, ambition and rivalry. A sweeping tale of the turbulent middle ages, The Pillars of the Earth is a masterpiece from one of the world's most popular authors.

 

The Hammer of Eden : A Novel by Ken Follett

Amazon.com
Ken Follett shook the mystery world with his debut (now classic) novel, The Eye of the Needle, and now he's shaking the earth again with The Hammer of Eden. Or, at least his bad guys are shaking it. The novel begins with a series of flashbacks while Priest and his girlfriend Star plot to steal a seismic vibrator. Priest, an illiterate street tough turned hippie guru, is rallying his commune to fight back against the state of California. Living out of time and out of society, the commune grows its own food, makes wine, and smokes a lot of dope, but the lives of Priest and his cohorts are about to be destroyed by the construction of a new power plant in their valley. Priest takes his cue from Melanie, a seismologist who joined his commune after being shaken by marital difficulties. With their seismic vibrator and under the code name Hammer of Eden, they plan to rock California with earthquakes until they get a promise of work stoppage. Judy Maddox is on their case. Daughter of an Irish American cop and a Vietnamese mother, Judy's slight in form though a rising force in the FBI. Office politics have placed her on a ludicrous case involving an earthquake threat, but the more she looks at the Hammer of Eden, the more she is convinced that the threat is for real. Her contact, seismologist Michael Quercus, provides compelling evidence that a major catastrophe is in the offing. From there, the novel becomes a race between Judy and Michael and the increasingly deadly and desperate Priest and his followers. The Hammer of Eden isn't, in the end, as groundbreaking as some of Follett's earlier work; the commune's jump from peace-loving band of hippies to state terrorists happens just a bit too quickly. Nevertheless, Follett's gift for plotting and intrigue keep the cracks in the narrative in check, and the denouement is sure to send tremors through the most sturdy of readers.

 

 

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