Jackdaws by Ken Follett
Jackdaws by Ken Follett is a wartime drama set in England and Nazi-occupied France. It traces the story of women commandos who parachute into enemy territory to destroy a telephone exchange ahead of the Allied counter invasion.
The heroine is a feisty good-looking type who speaks fluent French and co-ordinates multiple cells of the French resistance. In her penultimate raid she encounters a steely German major who shadows her until the conclusion.
Follett’s narrative skill is superb and he weaves several interesting sub-plots into the main story. Conflict creates tension and there’s plenty of that: The likeable German Major and his Gestapo rival; stuffy English bureaucrats oppose the all-women commando ploy; a German cross-dresser joins the all-women team; the heroine falls in love with an American while her French husband is battling Nazis for the Resistance, etc.
The ending is fairly predictable, but this book flows at a hectic pace and is well worth reading.
I'm a 41-year-old father of four working as a newspaper editor at Mount Gambier in South Australia.
