Eye of the Needle

Eye of the Needle is a spy thriller novel written by Welsh author Ken Follett. It was originally published in 1978 by the Penguin Group under the title Storm Island. This novel was Follett's first successful, bestselling effort as a novelist, and it earned him the 1979 Edgar Award for Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of America. The revised title is an allusion to the "eye of a needle" aphorism.

The book was made into a motion picture of the same title in 1981, starring Donald Sutherland, with a screenplay adapted by Stanley Mann and directed by Richard Marquand.

As noted in the foreword, Operation Fortitude was an Allied counter-intelligence operation run during World War II. Its goal was to convince the German military that the D-Day landings were to occur at Calais and not Normandy. As a part of Fortitude the fictitious First United States Army Group (FUSAG) was created. FUSAG used fake tanks, aircraft, buildings and radio traffic to create an illusion of an army being formed to land at Calais. So far - actual history. Follet then reminds the reader that had even a single German spy discovered the deception and reported it, this entire elaborate plan would have been derailed and the invasion of Nazi Europe would have become far more difficult and risky. The book's plot is built around this issue - however, it begins at a far earlier stage of the war.

In 1940 Henry Faber is the alias used by a German spy, nicknamed 'die Nadel' ('The Needle') due to his preference for the use of a stiletto as his trademark weapon. He is working at a London railway depot, collecting information on troop movements. Faber is halfway through radioing this information to Berlin when his widowed landlady stumbles into his room hoping for intimacy. Faber fears that Mrs. Garden will eventually realize that he was using a transmitter and that he is a spy, so he kills her with his stiletto, then resumes his transmission.

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