FAN-tastic. Admittedly, I don't like history, let alone war history, but Eye of the Needle was my first book by Follett, and it was soooooo good. I’ve easily read this book 3-4 times, and I’ve recommended it plenty more. With characters you love and love to hate all woven into carefully chosen elements of history, he brings the history to life. Perhaps my history teachers should have used this technique in school… by making history relevant, even to fictional characters, because then ‘history’ becomes present. It becomes now. Follett is a master at layering fiction over nonfiction. This is an ideal first book.