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Jackdaws
- Narrated by: Emilia Fox
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
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The Evening and the Morning
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International number-one best seller Ken Follett returns with The Evening and the Morning, a thrilling and addictive novel from the master of historical fiction. It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages, and in England one man's ambition to make his abbey a centre of learning will take the listener on an epic journey into a historical past rich with ambition and rivalry, death and birth, love and hate. Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, The Pillars of the Earth, which has sold more than 27 million copies worldwide.
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Tell me if you've heard this one before
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A huge novel that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women. It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family, is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London.
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What a discovery
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The Modigliani Scandal
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Modigliani. Unarguably one of the greatest artists who ever lived. Modigliani's women. Those elongated, haunting figures, as eternally provocative as the Mona Lisa. And Modigliani's missing masterpiece. A priceless lost treasure - or a chillingly dangerous game? In Ken Follett's gripping thriller The Modigliani Scandal, up and coming artist Peter Usher has still to exhibit anywhere, still to make even the most modest mark on the London art scene.
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enjoy it but an abrupt end but not bad if you like
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On Wings of Eagles
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When two of his American employees were held hostage in a heavily guarded prison fortress in Iran, one man took matters into his own hands: American businessman H. Ross Perot. His team consisted of a group of volunteers from the executive ranks of his corporation, hand-picked and trained by a retired Green Beret officer. To free the imprisoned Americans, they would face incalculable odds on a mission that only true heroes would have dared.
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Super fast reader
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Night Flight to Paris
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- Unabridged
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Paris, 1943. The swastika flies from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Soldiers clad in field grey patrol the streets. Buildings have been renamed, books banned, art stolen and people disappeared. Amongst the missing is an Allied intelligence cell. Gone to ground? Betrayed? Dead? Britain's Special Operations Executive need to find out. They recruit ex-Parisian and Bletchley Park codebreaker Harry Mitchell to return to the city he fled two years ago.
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Just one major glaring flaw..........
- By PD on 19-05-19
Summary
Two weeks before D-day, the French Resistance attacks a chateau containing a telephone exchange vital to German communications - but the building is heavily guarded, and the attack fails disastrously.
Flick Clairet, a young British secret agent, proposes a daring new plan: she will parachute into France with an all-woman team known as the Jackdaws, and they will penetrate the chateau in disguise. But, unknown to Flick, Rommel has assigned a brilliant, ruthless intelligence colonel, Dieter Franck, to crush the Resistance. And Dieter is on Flick's trail....
From Ken Follett, the master storyteller and best-selling author of Eye of the Needle and Code to Zero, comes this exciting thriller, set against the menacing backdrop of the Second World War and crackling with suspense and action.
Jackdaws is an irresistible novel of the Resistance and of love, courage and revenge.
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What listeners say about Jackdaws
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-09-18
Gripping listen
I am not sure how one enjoys a book that at times is quite brutal, but this book greatly exceeded my expectations and I found it quite gripping. I loved the way the author switched between telling the story from different angles, so that the same scene could be reflected from opposing sides. Extremely well read by Emilia Fox.
12 people found this helpful
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- S. Foster
- 04-11-18
Captivating
With perfect narration by Emilia Fox and Ken Folletts amazing ability to create engaging characters to share history with such clarity. Loved every minute of it.
6 people found this helpful
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- Graham Stubbs
- 01-10-18
Excellent
A must listen for any lover of WW2 drama. Very well written and incredibly well read.
4 people found this helpful
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- Mr. N. W. Boothman
- 06-01-21
A huge disappointment
I came to this after thoroughly enjoying Audible's recording of The Eye of the Needle, performed superbly by Samuel West. The drop in quality, both of Follett's writing and especially of the performance (here by Emilia Fox) is startling.
The story is set at exactly the same time as the Eye of the Needle - in the weeks running up to D-Day in 1944. Jackdaws has none of the tension and craft of the older book. Despite being a much less far-fetched idea it's a lot less plausible, mainly because of the Jackdaws themselves: a set of unlikely caricatures. It also seems to be written for a dopey audience; countless times we get plodding explanations of what a character is thinking when it's blindingly obvious from the context...'he was disappointed that she had escaped again, but still hoped to capture her later.' Well...duh.
There are similarities with The Eye of the Needle: the father-figure spymaster is called Percy again, there is an unnecessary warm n' fuzzy post-script to wrap up some characters' lives and there is a lot of very explicit sex. Follett just manages to make it erotic in TEotN but in Jackdaws it leaves you feeling like you need a good wash, and adds to the implausibility.
But the worst thing by far is the performance. Emilia Fox is a successful and accomplished actor but she's a disastrous choice for this job...she chooses to perform all the non-English characters in their respective accents, i.e. German and French. She lays these on with a trowel and the effect is amateurish and grating. Imagine a 17-hour episode of 'Allo Allo' without any funny moments and you'll have a good idea what it's like.
I've bought something like 120 titles on Audible and most of them have been fantastic. I've never given something such a bad review and I hope I never do again. I can't believe Jackdaws is so highly rated by most others so maybe it's just me...or maybe superstar thriller writers like Follett, Le Carré, Deighton, Forsyth et al can get away with a bad book every now and then with no apparent dip in ratings.
3 people found this helpful
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- Daire
- 29-02-20
Love this author!
Ken Follett’s books work well in audio form. This is the third one I’ve listened to and it was just as good as the others. Great performance also!
2 people found this helpful
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- Clair
- 21-04-19
A very enthralling listen
The story is so good that I found it difficult to put down, indeed at the end I was up until 2:40 am!
I like Emília Fox as an actress and her reading is superb. Her gentle cultured voice delivering some very gruesome and upsetting scenes made them all the more chilling.
Highly recommended
2 people found this helpful
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- Alan Bateson
- 10-02-21
A slow burner, but always intruging
I enjoyed this book, but i must admit it took me a while to become gripped. A 17 hour book that probably could have been shortented to about 12 without losing the plot. Emilia Fox narrated well and I felt she grew into the book as i did. I like this author and this is a good story. Just wish he'd get to the point a bit quicker sometimes. Nonetheless, It's worth downloading and if you like WW2, Secret Agent, particularly SOE stories, Then it should be on your must listen list.
1 person found this helpful
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- Paul Martin
- 31-01-21
Loved every minute
This is the second Ken Follett audiobook i've listened to,the first one being Eye Of The Needle,which was read by Samuel West,this story which was read by Emilia Fox which was a thoroughly enjoyable story from my perspective,she really brought the story to life,although some of the character's were somewhat stereotypical of French and German character's it was a great listen,I'd throughly recommend this audiobook to those that like spy stories or WWII stories....
1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-01-21
I love this SOE espionage adventure
I am fascinated by the amazing work and bravery of the Special Operations Executive in the WW2, particularly the role of women.
This is a well written , gripping, espionage thriller that had me hooked from the beginning. Emilia Fox's performance is fantastic as always.
1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 18-02-21
Underwhelming
I really enjoy the subject matter covered by the book ordinarily however I found the storyline lacking. I also found the characters a little obvious and predictable.
I normally love Ken Follet’s books. They are usually full of intrigue, the storyline being full of surprises and the characters rounded and deep in detail.
It might be that I found Emilia Fox narration quite grating and that a different narrator may have interpreted the nuances of the book in a different way.
Disappointed