"Eye of the Needle" by Ken Follett

A German spy, "Faber", in London, 1940, kills his landlady because she might have seen something she shouldn't. An academic, Godliman, is talked into joining the secret service. A newly married man, David (oxbridge, well-off), just about to be a Spitfire pilot, is disabled in a car accident and rehabilitates with his wife, Lucy, and baby on a Scottish island.

Then it's 1944. Faber is on a fishing and bird-watching holiday in East Anglia, by boat. He discovers that the big camps have decoy planes and barracks. It's news that could influence the outcome of the war. He's challenged by 5 men, 2 of them armed. He thinks that's good enough odds and kills them all. On the way to Scotland to be picked up by a sub and deliver the evidence, he has to kill again. Godliman and Bloggs (a clever young inspector, made a widower by a bomb raid) are leading a search.

He's shipwrecked off Aberdeen, lands on the island. Beautiful Lucy hasn't made love for years. She plans to leave her grumpy, wheelchaired husband. There's a mutual attraction between Faber and her. They make love on his first night. Next day, on a trip across the island, David accuses him at gunpoint of being a spy or escapee.

Lucy realises that "Henry" has killed David, and thinks he's the mass murderer mentioned on the radio. She coldly calculates what to do. "Henry" returns. After making love again she escapes with her child Joe to the only other cottage on the island and prepares for a siege. There's a radio set. She sends an SOS. In the night "Henry" tries to get in. She's armed. He tries to love-talk her. She sends out the sheep-dog. He kills it. He gets in, using Joe to make her hand over the guns. He doesn't kill them. In the end, she kills him.

There's the contrast of the island - 4 inhabitants - and the war-infested world whose fate might depend on the island, isolated even more because of a mighty storm.

The final 2 twists are predictable, which is fair enough: the English fake a message from Faber to Hitler, and in a flash-forward Lucy is a grandmother, Bloggs her husband.

Widows and widowers feature.

Other reviews

• Kirkus review (What then follows—the romance between The Needle and the lovestarved wife, their hideous and unwilling death-duel—is badly marred by explicit sex and explicit sentimentality that, like Follett's occasional anachronistic or heavyhanded fumbles, violate the tone and period feel. But perhaps it's just as well: if Follett's debut were flawless, he'd have nowhere to go. As it is, Eye of the Needle introduces a fresh if not especially distinctive voice in suspense—and is easily the best first novel in the espionage genre since The Day of the Jackal.
• meinblogland (The strength of the book lies in its story. It is engaging, chilling and inspiring. I would say the first half of the book is a bit slow but towards the middle it picks up steam and is gripping right until the very end. It isn't without its flaws of course. A few of the fictionalized aspects of the novel may seem formulaic and one or two maybe even far-fetched)
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