Line #14 Literature/Jackdaws


1	[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jackdaws.jpg]]
2
3	A 2001 novel by Creator/KenFollett, ''Jackdaws'' follows LaResistance 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.
4	----
5	!!Contains examples of:
6	* AntiVillain: Dieter is pretty thoroughly humanized and shown to not care overly about the Nazi ideal, to be genuinely in love with his mistress, and to absolutely despise torturing people. However, he's still willing to work diligently for the Nazi cause if that's what it takes to let him keep his high standard of living, and while he gets horrible migraines after every time he tortures someone he doesn't let that stop him from getting them to talk by whatever means necessary.
7	* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler: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]].
8	* BestialityIsDepraved: [[spoiler:Forcing Flick to mate with animals]] is one of the torture methods Dieter plans to use on her.
9	* BoxedCrook: Ruby, though the SOE is very careful to make it so the charges have not been dropped to keep her from running away.
10	* BuryYourGays: Three members of the eponymous RagtagBunchOfMisfits are homosexual; they all die, two [[TooDumbToLive incredibly stupidly]]. Of the three heterosexual members (four, counting Paul), only one dies.
11	* LesCollaborateurs: Stephanie is loyal to Dieter because he saved her from a death camp, and helps him root out the Resistance. [[spoiler:Later she's RewardedAsATraitorDeserves by Flick with a bullet to the head]].
12	* {{Crossdresser}}: [[spoiler:"Greta" is actually a gay man who can pass well enough to fool most people]].
13	* ElectricTorture: Dieter and Major Becker both make use of it. [[spoiler:Flick eventually kills Becker with his own electroshock machine.]]
14	* EyeScream: [[spoiler: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]].
15	* HeroicSacrifice:
16	** [[spoiler:Greta distracts Franck by revealing that [[UnsettlingGenderReveal he's really a man]] just long enough for the charges to go off]].
17	** Also [[spoiler:Michel honks the horn of the car to warn Flick that the Nazis are in the field, and in the process gets shot]].
18	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Erwin Rommel and Bernard Montgomery both make appearances.
19	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: Major Becker ends up being electrocuted by his own torture device.]]
20	%%* HotGypsyWoman
21	* ImpededCommunication: The plot centers around the use of a team of female saboteurs to destroy a German telephone exchange in occupied France shortly before D-Day. The reasoning behind targeting the exchange is that with the exchange destroyed, the German military would be either unable to coordinate troop movements to make a counterattack, or would be forced to use communications such as radio messages which could be more easily jammed or intercepted.
22	* JanitorImpersonationInfiltration: ThePlan is for the Jackdaws to infiltrate the building where the telephone exchange is located by posing as the cleaning crew. [[spoiler:To that end, Flick even robs a member of the actual cleaning crew of her ID card so it can be copied, while said cleaning lady won't know anything she could spill during an interrogation.]]
23	* PetTheDog: Dieter's rescue of Stephanie, which arguably makes the other atrocities he commits all the more horrifying.
24	* PottyEmergency: One of Dieter's more creative forms of interrogation is to give [[spoiler:Mlle. Lemas]] lots of tea, put her with a bunch of polite young radio operators and then refuse her access to the bathroom until she talks.
25	%%* QueerRomance: [[spoiler:Maude and Diana.]]
26	* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: The Jackdaws are composed mostly of women who were rejected from various branches of the military, and in Ruby's case are prisoners.
27	* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler: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.
28	* TortureTechnician: 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.
29	* UnconventionalWeddingDress: Flick and Paul both wear military uniforms when they get married due to it being a WartimeWedding.
30	* WantedPoster: [[spoiler: Dieter has one of Flick produced after he acquires her photograph.]]
31	* WigDressAccent: After [[spoiler: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.
32	* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: {{Discussed}} by the characters, and Flick has no illusions that what she's doing is anything less than terrorism against the Nazis.

Context Literature / Jackdaws