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The Eagle Has Landed
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Penguin (2005-11-24)
ISBN: 0140273344
EAN: 9780140273342
Dewy Decimal #: 813
Paperback: 384 pages
Edition: New Ed
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Customer Reviews
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War classic
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-11-21
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
It is November 1943, and the Second World War is in its fourth year. Adolf Hitler's Third Reich is fending off Allied advances in the Eastern Front and in Italy. German cities are being bombed "around the clock" by the American and British air forces. Across the English Channel, the Anglo-American forces are marshaling troops and making plans for history's greatest amphibious operation, which is tentatively scheduled for May of 1944.
But even though Germany has suffered great defeats in North Africa and the vast territories of the Soviet Union, Hitler still has hopes of winning the war. Desperately seeking a significant propaganda victory and inspired by the rescue of fellow dictator Benito Mussolini by a team of German special forces, the Fuhrer (egged on by SS chief Heinrich Himmler) orders the head of Military Intelligence (Abwehr) to carry out an even more daring special forces mission: to capture British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and bring him to the Reich.
At first, it is an offhand remark, "a joke," as Abwehr Col. Max Radl notes, "...something the Fuhrer threw out in an angry mood on a Wednesday, to be forgotten by Friday." Soon, though, as Himmler orders a feasibility study and Radl ponders it, what seems like a fantastic notion soon starts looking as something that can, with the right men and conditions, be done.
This dangerous mission is assigned to Lt. Col. Kurt Steiner, the son of a German general and his American wife, and a small group of paratroopers. Their mission: to drop into East Anglia near the town of Studley Constable, where Abwehr agent Joanna Grey and IRA operative Liam Devlin are waiting to assist in the capture of Britain's wartime leader, and snatch Churchill from the estate where he is staying while on an inspection tour.
And so, in the early morning hours of November 6, 1943, as soon as Steiner's small band of paratroopers floats down onto English soil, Heinrich Himmler receives the coded message he has been waiting for with great anticipation: "The Eagle has landed."
Jack Higgins' bestselling novel was published almost 30 years ago, but its taut storyline and inventive blend of fact and fiction place this World War II thriller in the ranks of the best books of the genre. His descriptions of historical characters -- such as Adolf Hitler -- and his references to actual historical events give the whole scenario verisimilitude. All the characters -- hero, anti-hero, and even villains -- are well-developed and believable. Higgins also has the creative chutzpah of injecting a first-person narrator named Jack Higgins, making the book sound like a reporter's expose of a German mission so daring that it had to be covered up by the Allies.
The novel launched Higgins' career into almost instant fame, and in turn inspired a 1977 film version starring Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, Donald Sutherland, and Joanna Miles. It was followed in the mid-1980s by a sequel, The Eagle Has Flown.
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Paratroopers, the IRA and a British Village
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-03-26
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
The Eagle Has Landed has a strong resemblance to the wartime propaganda movie "Went the Day Well?" in which paratroopers land in England and occupy a village. However, in Higgins' novel the troopers masquerade as Polish paratroopers and are here to capture Churchill.
Higgins' Germans are good guys, Kurt Steiner is the sensible leader of the group who have been whittled down after being sent to a punishment battalion on occupied Alderney in the Channel Islands. The 'bad Germans' are the Gestapo, the SS and in particular Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler.
The plan, Eagle, is most audacious and implausible as a novel (and a film) as you know how it ends (obviously, Churchill did not die in 1943) but nonetheless Higgins maintains an intricate plot with suspense, tension and rather excellent dialogue. You do indeed find yourself rooting for Steiner and his men. Even in the film you do.
Higgins involves the 'lesser known' parts of the war, these being the occupied Channel Islands, the captured Allied aircraft in German service (KG200) and a British Free Corps member (within the Waffen-SS, a traitor). These not being the subject of countless documentaries.
All in all an entertaining read, every time.
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Simply the best
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-09-30
2 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
Quite simply the best, most enthralling work of its kind. I remember reading this for the first time as a seventeen year old and being totally convinced that the entire plot was based on real events - and even now having re-read it, it's difficult to escape from the authors engaging characters and discomforting plot. Most interestingly of all is how Jack Higgins managed to convince me that Devlin of the IRA and Steiner of the Wermacht were good guys, so much so that I wanted them to succeed!
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Compulsive page turner
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-09-05
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
No matter what anyone else says this is a really fantastic story set in war-time Britain - one of the best I've had the pleasure to read! The audacity of the plot is what's so brilliant about it - never mind that Jack Higgins ability with words ensures you just want to keep turning the page. It's the sort of book that if you have to put it down for a few hours (to do some work, say) you'll be filled with anticipation knowing you've got it to look forward to later on. It's the sort of book you ignore the phone for, stay in for a night for and then be really sad and sorry when you've finished it. If you want to read a thumping good war-time thriller this is right up there with the best of them. I totally recommend it!
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After 3 decades, "Eagle" still thrills!
Rating  (4)
Date: 2004-02-21
8 out of 9 customers found this reveiw helpful
It is November 1943, and the Second World War is in its fourth year. Adolf Hitler's Third Reich is fending off Allied advances in the Eastern Front and in Italy. German cities are being bombed "around the clock" by the American and British air forces. Across the English Channel, the Anglo-American forces are marshaling troops and making plans for history's greatest amphibious operation, which is tentatively scheduled for May of 1944.But even though Germany has suffered great defeats in North Africa and the vast territories of the Soviet Union, Hitler still has hopes of winning the war. Desperately seeking a significant propaganda victory and inspired by the rescue of fellow dictator Benito Mussolini by a team of German special forces, the Fuhrer (egged on by SS chief Heinrich Himmler) orders the head of Military Intelligence (Abwehr) to carry out an even more daring special forces mission: to capture British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and bring him to the Reich. At first, it is an offhand remark, "a joke," as Abwehr Col. Max Radl notes, "...something the Fuhrer threw out in an angry mood on a Wednesday, to be forgotten by Friday." Soon, though, as Himmler orders a feasibility study and Radl ponders it, what seems like a fantastic notion soon starts looking as something that can, with the right men and conditions, be done. This dangerous mission is assigned to Lt. Col. Kurt Steiner, the son of a German general and his American wife, and a small group of paratroopers. Their mission: to drop into East Anglia near the town of Studley Constable, where Abwehr agent Joanna Grey and IRA operative Liam Devlin are waiting to assist in the capture of Britain's wartime leader, and snatch Churchill from the estate where he is staying while on an inspection tour. And so, in the early morning hours of November 6, 1943, as soon as Steiner's small band of paratroopers floats down onto English soil, Heinrich Himmler receives the coded message he has been waiting for with great anticipation: "The Eagle has landed." Jack Higgins' bestselling novel was published almost 30 years ago, but its taut storyline and inventive blend of fact and fiction place this World War II thriller in the ranks of the best books of the genre. His descriptions of historical characters -- such as Adolf Hitler -- and his references to actual historical events give the whole scenario verisimilitude. All the characters -- hero, anti-hero, and even villains -- are well-developed and believable. Higgins also has the creative chutzpah of injecting a first-person narrator named Jack Higgins, making the book sound like a reporter's expose of a German mission so daring that it had to be covered up by the Allies. The novel launched Higgins' career into almost instant fame, and in turn inspired a 1977 film version starring Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, Donald Sutherland, and Joanna Miles. It was followed in the mid-1980s by a sequel, The Eagle Has Flown.
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