A Dangerous Fortune

Customer Rating:
Summary: School boys : good boys, bad boys , homicidal boys...
Comment: Another historical novel about this period is Gai- Jin.
A dangerous secret haunts the live of five upper class British and south American boys. Two of the boys are from a famous rich banking family.
There is a recurring theme of banking crashes in the book as well.
We get a good guys and bad guys picture of the world that for all the prostitution and women's rights issues mentioned is still a dualistic picture of the world in black and white. One comes to expect more from admittedly great writers.
I this book we get a commercial novel
that lacks the depth of an Ken Follett masterpiece.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but predictable
Comment: I checked this out of the library as an audio book, and I would say this is a perfect choice for a road trip. I would not have wasted my time reading, nor would I purchase this book. The characters are unbelievable--the main character is the ethical Hugh who is crossed over and over by his purely evil Aunt Augusta, and yet he never sees it coming and keeps coming back for more. By the end of the book I could barely care about Hugh--there's innocent and then there's obtuse. The plot is pretty predictable at times, the characters are flat & mostly one dimensional, the "coincidences" are as unbelievable as those of any Gothic novel, and much of the story is hard to believe given the time setting.

However, for a long car ride, it was perfect--certainly didn't have to think too much and the story does mostly keep you engaged.

Customer Rating:
Summary: KEN FOLLET DOES IT AGAIN
Comment: I STARTED WITH PILLARS, THEN WORLD WITHOUT END AND THIS WAS MY THIRD KEN FOLLETT BOOK AND I MUST SAY, I WAS THRILLED AGAIN!!! I LOVE HOW INVOLVED I BECOME IN HIS CHARACTERS LIVES, AND WITHOUT FAIL SEX EVERYWHERE!

Customer Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Good
Comment: I wasn't really expecting much of this book, but was pleasantly surprised. I have read two other Follett books, The Pillars of the Earth and Night Over Water. Pillars is great, aside from the dismal sex scenes, and Night Over Water is completely forgettable.

This one is a nice page-turner. On top of the surprisingly interesting setting of 19th Century merchant banking, the characters are pretty well-developed. It takes a little while to get immersed, but once you are in there, it's easy to follow and enjoyable. I found myself really rooting for the protagonists, and without being a spoiler, it's nice that while everything doesn't turn out just peachy, basically everyone gets "what they deserve." There are some surprising twists -- some a little melodramatic, but not too over the top.

Overall, I'd recommend this. Not good for reading at night in bed.... I stayed up WAY to late to finish it!

Customer Rating:
Summary: Decent, Moderately Entertaining Work
Comment: This is a quite unremarkable, moderately entertaining work of fiction set in late 19th century England. As with another of Follett's works, A Place Called Freedom, it has little to recommend it over dozens of other similar novels set in the period.

The plot revolves around the Pilasters, a wealthy and contentious banking family, whose various branches struggle for control of the family business. Subplots involving a fictitious South American country and members of the British "underclass" bring some spice into the history. However, as with A Place Called Freedom, the most striking aspect of the novel is its utter predictability. Twists in the story become strikingly obvious scores of pages in advance.

I would rate this novel slightly above the aforementioned A Place Called Freedom, but both pale in comparison to Follett's two novels Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. Readers familiar with those works will likely be disappointed with this effort.