Ken Follett's New Spy Thriller Features Huntsville

One thing that Follett needed to find was a house as the model for Luke, his main character, to live in.  Tom and Cathey showed him around the Twickenham district and Old Town.  Ken picked this house on McClung Street as the house for his character.  He took several photographs of it to take back with him to England, but never went inside the house.

I enjoyed reading the United Kingdom edition of the  book.  I guess only a foreigner would attempt to write about the South without firsthand knowledge.  There were some things that stood out for me and I'm not sure if they were corrected in the American printing of the book.  Not only the English spellings of some words, but the naming of things, such as "dungarees" for jeans.

Also, Follett has Luke's secretary as a black woman.  I checked with some people who worked with Von Braun during that period of time, and in the 50's, there were no black people working as engineers or secretaries.  This was not because they weren't wanted, but because they could not find any blacks that were qualified or applying for the positions at that point in history.  In one scene in the book, a white woman walks into a black church during choir practice.  The white woman waits until the choir finishes their song before she approaches the director to talk to her.  Anyone living in the South in 1958 knows that the choir would have automatically stopped singing if a white woman had walked into their church.

All in all, this is a good book with an intriguing tale with many twists and turns.  I was guessing wrong most of the way through the book and found the ending a surprise.  I enjoyed the love story; I'm sure the local NASA personnel will enjoy the countdown and technical details of the book. 

Code to Zone can be found in most bookstores.   Inside sources say that the movie rights to the book have already been sold.  Watch for Huntsville on the big screen soon!

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