Jackdaws

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.

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Contains examples of:

• 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.
• Cross Dresser: "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.