In contrast, Follett's Wolff – though having a sensual and pleasure-loving side – is completely dedicated to his mission, driven by a curious mixture of German nationalism, Egyptian patriotism and an overwhelming personal ambition. However, Wolff is a far more formidable character than the actual Eppler, who 'deliberately sabotaged his own radio, because he wanted to enjoy himself and live with a Jewish prostitute'. When seeing Sadat already beginning to think of making the most of his arrest and 'preparing to play martyr', Vandam thinks 'He is very adaptable, he should be a politician' the reader, obviously, is well aware that Sadat is the future President of Egypt.

Sadat plays an important role in the plot, and the scene of his arrest by the British is largely derived from Sadat's own autobiography – though the British officer who actually arrested him was not Follett's protagonist, Major William Vandam, a completely fictional character. And Eppler did request assistance from the Cairo-based Free Officers Movement, who were at the time nominally pro-Axis in the belief that they would 'liberate' Egypt from the British, and specifically from the young Anwar Sadat. Like Follett's spy, Eppler was based at a houseboat on the river Nile, got help from a nationalist-inclined belly dancer in his espionage work, and used a system of codes based on Daphne du Maurier's book Rebecca – which provided the title of Follett's book. The real-life Eppler, like Follett's fictional Alex Wolff, had grown up in Egypt after his mother had remarried to a wealthy Egyptian, and thus had a mixed German and Arab cultural heritage, greatly facilitating his ability to penetrate British-ruled Egypt. Many plot elements in the novel are based on actual historical details. Len Deighton's novel City of Gold is also laid against much of the same background.

This true story was also later to form the basis behind Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning 1992 novel The English Patient and the 1996 Academy Award-winning film of the same name starring Ralph Fiennes. This was to form the basis of Follett's The Key to Rebecca, Eppler being the inspiration behind the character Alex Wolff, and he spent a year writing it, more than the time he took to write his previous novels Eye of the Needle and Triple. Eppler or John Eppler) and his involvement in Operation Salaam, a non-fiction account of which was published in 1959. While undertaking research for his best-selling novel Eye of the Needle, Follett had discovered the true story of the Nazi spy Johannes Eppler (also known as John W.

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