Jackdaws
| Written by: | Ken Follett |
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| Central Theme: | |
| Synopsis: | |
| Genre(s): | Historical fiction, Spy thriller |
| First published: | 2001 |
A 2001 novel by Ken Folett, Jackdaws follows La Résistance in Nazi occupied France on the eve of D-Day. Felicity "Flick" Clairet has been tasked to blow up a key telephone exchange, but finds herself up against a Nazi intelligence officer named Dieter Franck who is determined to stop her.
Tropes used in Jackdaws include:
- Anyone Can Die: In the end, only two of the Jackdaws make it back, the rest dying during the mission or being carted off to a death camp.
- Boxed Crook: Ruby, though the SOE is very careful to make it so the charges have not been dropped to keep her from running away.
- Crossdresser: "Greta" is actually a gay man who can pass well enough to fool most people.
- Electric Torture: Dieter and Major Becker both make use of it.
- Eye Scream: Flick puts a knife in Dieter's eye, and while it doesn't kill him the epilogue strongly implies that it gives him brain damage.
- Girls Love: Maude and Diana
- Heroic Sacrifice: Greta distracts Franck by revealing that he's really a man just long enough for the charges to go off.
- Also Michel honks the horn of the car to warn Flick that the Nazis are in the field, and in the process gets shot.
- Historical Domain Character: Erwin Rommel and Bernard Montgomery both make appearances.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Major Becker ends up being electrocuted by his own torture device.
- Les Collaborateurs: Stephanie is loyal to Dieter because he saved her from a death camp, and helps him root out the Resistance. Later she's Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves by Flick with a bullet to the head.
- Pet the Dog: Dieter's rescue of Stephanie, which arguably makes the other atrocities he commits all the more horrifying.
- Potty Emergency: One of Dieter's more creative forms of interrogation is to give Mlle. Lemas lots of tea and then refuse her access to the bathroom until she talks.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Jackdaws are composed mostly of women who were rejected from various branches of the military, and in Ruby's case are prisoners.
- Too Dumb to Live: Maude and Diana run off to The Ritz in Nazi occupied Paris in the middle of the mission to go on a date. Needless to say Flick is not amused.
- Torture Technician: Dieter Franck is a pro, and scoffs at the SS men's inefficient methods such as hitting the victim in the head, which he points out is extremely counter-effective since it'll most likely confuse or brain damage the person they're trying to interrogate.
- Wanted Poster: Dieter has one of Flick produced after he acquires her photograph.
- Wig, Dress, Accent: After Flick sees that Franck has plastered her photo all over Paris she pays a prostitute for her black wig and darkens her eyebrows with a makeup pencil.
- Your Cheating Heart: In the beginning of the book Flick discovers that Michel is cheating on her with Gilberte when she finds his razor in her apartment.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Discussed by the character, and Flick has no illusions that what she's doing is anything less than terrorism against the Nazis.