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Faber should kill Lucy, but he finds himself unable to do so, being deeply in love with her to the detriment of his mission and of simple self-preservation. Unable to send a radio message, Faber attempts to descend the cliff and swim to the waiting U-boat. Lucy throws a rock down at him, striking him and causing him to lose his balance and fall to his death. An RAF patrol plane then appears and drives the U-boat away. A fictitious radio message is sent with Faber's call code, convincing the
Germans that the planned invasion is still targeting Calais and causing Hitler to deny Rommel and Rundstedt the reserve panzer divisions. Bloggs comforts the widowed Lucy, with the epilogue implying that they later married.
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physical relationship with Faber. David soon discovers both Lucy's infidelity and Faber's FUSAG photos. David confronts Faber, but after a struggle Faber kills David by rolling him off a cliff, and tells Lucy it was another accident. However, she discovers her husband's body and realises the truth.
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In
Aberdeen, Faber steals a small trawler and sets out to meet the U-boat. Caught by a fierce storm, he is shipwrecked on Storm Island, collapsing near the isolated house where David, Lucy and Joe live. Lucy nurses him back to health. Stuck in a loveless marriage to the crippled David, she begins a
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Faber realises he may be caught before leaving the island and so tries to radio the information about FUSAG directly to
Germany. Lucy stops him by short-circuiting the electricity in the cottage, injuring herself in the process. By the cold logic which has guided his actions throughout his career,
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railway depot, collecting information on Allied 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 realise that he was using a transmitter and that he is a
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are informed that Faber has the critical information. German Field
Marshalls Rommel and Von Rundstedt, both already convinced that Normandy is indeed the target, lobby Hitler for several reserve panzer divisions, but Hitler delays making a decision until he receives Faber's intelligence.
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has executed or recruited all German spies in
Britain except Faber. A history professor formerly acquainted with Faber, Godliman, and a widowed ex-policeman, Bloggs, are employed by MI5 to catch him. They start with the interrupted broadcast and his codename
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was given command of this 'army' which also influenced the German military. As Follet notes in the foreword to the novel, if the deception had been discovered the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe would have become more difficult.
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338:. Several soldiers try to arrest him but he kills them with his stiletto. Realising that FUSAG being fake implies that the D-Day landings will be in Normandy rather than around Calais, Faber heads for
445:(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. The controversial American General
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and
Scotland. Faber escapes many times but his repeated killings (intended to prevent people from recognizing his appearance) allow MI5 to track him to Aberdeen. Both
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separatist militant seeking to gain a nuclear weapon, while the role of Lucy is given to a
Kashmiri girl who loves the militant yet ends up killing him.
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pilot, and his bride Lucy are on their honeymoon when they're involved in a car crash. David loses the use of both his legs. Unable to fly during the
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is loosely based on the book, moved to a contemporary Indian location. The role of the German spy Faber being taken by a
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In 1940, Henry Faber, a German spy nicknamed 'die Nadel' ('The Needle') due to his trademark weapon being a
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spy, so he kills her with his stiletto, then resumes his transmission.
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The reveal kickstarts the BBC's year-long celebration of literature.
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Henry Faber – "Die Nadel", also called The Needle, a German spy
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Italian cover of the Eye of the Needle, Mondadori 1979.
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Percival
Godliman – history professor, recruited to
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will take him and his intelligence back to
Germany.
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668:"100 'most inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts"
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