Editing Ken Follett (section)

=== Further successes ===

Success came slowly at first, but the 1978 release of ''Eye of the Needle'' changed everything. The novel became an international bestseller, selling over 10 million copies worldwide, which brought him both wealth and global recognition..<ref>{{cite web |title=Follett, Ken {{!}} List of Writers |url=http://www.literaturewales.org/writers-of-wales/i/130139/desc/follett-ken/ |website=literaturewales.org |access-date=2016-01-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160413154558/http://www.literaturewales.org/writers-of-wales/i/130139/desc/follett-ken/ |archive-date=13 April 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Each of Follett's subsequent novels has become a best-seller, ranking high on the [[New York Times Best Seller list|''New York Times'' Best Seller list]]; a number have been adapted for the screen. As of January 2018, he had published 44 books.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Fantastic |first1=Fiction |title=Ken Follett |url=https://www.fantasticfiction.com/f/ken-follett/ |publisher=Fantastic Fiction |access-date=2 February 2018}}</ref> The first five best sellers were spy thrillers: ''Eye of the Needle'' (1978), ''[[Triple (novel)|Triple]]'' (1979), ''[[The Key to Rebecca ]]''(1980), ''[[The Man from St. Petersburg]]'' (1982) and ''[[Lie Down with Lions]]'' (1986). ''[[On Wings of Eagles]]'' (1983) was the true story of how two of [[Ross Perot]]'s employees were rescued from Iran during the revolution of 1979.
The next three novels, ''[[Night Over Water]]'' (1991), ''[[A Dangerous Fortune]]'' (1993) and ''[[A Place Called Freedom]]'' (1995) were more historical than thriller, but he returned to the thriller genre with ''[[The Third Twin]]'' (1996) which in the ''Publishing Trends'' annual survey of international fiction best-sellers for 1997 was ranked no. 2 worldwide, after [[John Grisham]]'s ''[[The Partner (Grisham novel)|The Partner]]''. His next work, ''[[The Hammer of Eden]]'' (1998), was another contemporary suspense story followed by a [[Cold War]] thriller, ''[[Code to Zero]]'' (2000).

[[File:Ken Follett with his book Eisfieber (English-'Whiteout').jpg|thumb|right|Follett with the German edition of his book ''Whiteout'' in October 2005]]

Follett returned to the [[Second World War]] era with his next two novels, ''[[Jackdaws (novel)|Jackdaws]]'' (2001), a thriller about a group of women parachuted into France to destroy a vital telephone exchange – which won the [[Corine Literature Prize]] for 2003 – and ''[[Hornet Flight]]'' (2002), about a daring young [[Denmark|Danish]] couple who escape to Britain from occupied Denmark in a rebuilt [[de Havilland Hornet Moth|Hornet Moth]] biplane with vital information about German radar. ''[[Whiteout (Follett novel)|Whiteout]]'' (2004) is a contemporary thriller about the theft of a deadly virus from a research lab.
[[File:Ken Follett.jpg|thumb|Follett in [[Helsinki]], [[Finland]] on [[World Book Day]] in 2005.]]