Things you can count on in a Follett book:A strong male protagonist who everyone else is determined to make fail.A strong female protagonist who acts in ways women of their time period just do not act, and doesn't give a damn about what others think of her. One of the above parties either rises from their low station or falls from their high station. A nasty villain who does nothing, but bad and surrounds himself with powerful people who he manipulates to get what he wants and to cover his bad d...

I would read Follett just for his intriguing dialogue.

I love a female villain, and this one is so machiavelic, so devious, so smart and cold..."A Dangerous Fortune," which is one of Follett's earlier books, takes place in the mid-1800's in England. A tragedy takes place at a boarding school when a student mysteriously drowns. This is the beginning of years of treachery that impacts the lives of so many people. There's greed, lust, and murder...what could be better? This is an old fashion family saga that grabs you from the very beginning and keeps

Could have and should have been a better story. 3 of 10 stars

3.5 starsKen Follett really knows how to tell a story...he knows his characters and his history and weaves the two together in a very enjoyable way.This is set in 1860's-1890's in England and follows the ups/downs of a family who own/run a bank.Positives - great story telling, I couldn't wait to find out what happened next with plenty of interesting characters and plots to keep you interested.Negatives - some repetition and stereotyping. 'Horrible' characters with no redeeming features where you...

I know that all tastes in books is subjective and what one person may like might not necessarily appeal to another but I really cannot stress how utterly terrible I found this book.Imagine Zola's La Curee mixed with a touch of Mary Poppins and just enough Eyeless in Gaza to make one think that this might be a halfway decent read, rewritten by Jeffery Archer as a TV mini series for a minor digital channel and you are 10% of the way to understanding just how awful this novel is.There is no charact...

The presentation of this audible book captures it's era the last half of the 19th century very well. It focuses on a bank and the family of the owners of that bank. The main character Hugh is a model of high ethics and morality but there. Are plenty of characters in the banking family who are far lesser than he is. I was fascinated to experience the workings of the banking system in the 19 century and to experience the lives of the upper class and their system of titles. But there were also enou...

Ken Follet has added another great book this novel, A Dangerous Fortune. His has a great nack for creating amazing characters showing many different aspects of human life, like manipulation, greedy, misery, deceiving, murder, political and amorous intrigues, etc., making the book a very entertaining reading.The story takes place in the late 1800’s and starts with a tragic drowning of a student in an exclusive school named Windfield. A small circle of boys are directly or indirectly involved in t...

Another exceptional book by Ken Follett. At one point I had to close the book because I knew something bad was about to happen, and I wanted to pretend for one moment that it wouldn't happen, but then I dived back in. So many threads woven perfectly together to tell the story of a bank and a mother's hunger for status, power and wealth.19th century England was awash with class distinctions, and complex social rules, and Follett traverses those with mastery. Loved it.

Few can write so many personalities telling a complex story spanning decades from the poor to the privileged in a period piece as successfully as Ken. Captivating and exciting, this book, like his others, make you love the good characters and despise the bad ones. Great characters who have lives you become invested in. Very entertaining and educational.

Yes, this book is somewhat predictable and serves less as a mystery novel and more as a historical drama/romance, but I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the novel simply as it was. It may also be a bit too familiar to Follett followers as the model of storytelling remains consistent with his typical writing techniques, but it also displays Follett's tremendous ability to set a mood and create an atmosphere that makes almost all his books so hard to put down. The historical detail makes A Dange...

Follett's definitely got a formula, and here he follows it true to form. Unfortunately I thought it fell short compared to the others I've read, like Fall of Giants, A Placed Called Freedom, and especially Pillars of the Earth. The good people are good and prescient and precocious, the bad people are petty, vindictive, and rotten, and then.....crazy shit happens.It's a formula, but he does it well.However, the characters didn't live up to their WTF potential and the ending - as hilariously bugfu...

Copied from a testimonial:"Good thrillers are like elegant geometrical proofs. Their drama lies not in their ultimate outcome but in their method. Though we know that the good guys will eventually triumph, we don't know how; a good thriller should keep us guessing until the last page. Ken Follett does just that."This is the first thing I had to say about Ken Follett when I completed this book. For long Jeffrey Archer has been my favourite writer and I have believed the fact that I can count on f...

A Dangerous Fortune is my third Ken Follett book, after Fall of Giants and Hornet Flight and I have to say after Fortune, he is fast becoming a favourite author of mine. This book was a tremendous read and one that had me hooked and longing to return to its pages to find out what would happen next.Set in the 19th century, the story spans the decades between the 1860s and 1890s and follows the fortunes of the powerful Pilaster family following the death of a student one summer at a swimming hole

Review of the audiobook narrated by Michael Page.This is my fourth book by Ken Follett and I can't help but notice his formula now. Generational stories told in periods that are broken up into parts by long time jumps (this works well). Great villains that you will hate, yet at the same time find sympathetic (another win). A male protagonist who is a plain looking overachiever and a female protagonist who is a beautiful and strong ahead-of-her-time innovator (getting a little old). The good char...

Ken Follett has long been a favorite author of mine. We tend to snap his books up as soon as they hit the shelves. Not sure how it happened, but 20 years ago I somehow missed this one. Came across it quite by accident, and it was like discovering a hidden treasure and what a pleasure it was to read! Back to the days of corsets and bustles in merry old London, this tale spans the period of 1866 to 1892. Fans of this author are used to his finely drawn characters, not just the principals, all of t...

Impressive Ken Follett novel, almost an epic (568 pp.) about the interplay between two 19th Century London banking families and the lower orders who want to become part of them. The Methodist Pilasters are quite conservative; the Jewish Greenbournes even more so. Serving as spoilers are wicked school chum Miguel ("Mickey") Miranda and the Pilasters' own Aunt Augusta. Along with descriptions of aristocratic parties and decadent bordellos there's enough soap opera to keep the pages flying. Not the...

Lots of characters and lots of interesting details about banking in the robber baron days. Overall, a really good read! (And some poetic justice well served in the end pages!)

***Attention! This review contains spoilers. So, don't read it unless you finished the book***This book, what to say about this book? I absolutely love all Ken Follett’s book, he is genius. Dangerous Fortune is not typical Follett’s book, set in 19th century , story follows the fortunes of famous and rich family Pilaster. At the beginning I thought it will be criminal book or something like that, I didn’t expect so much drama, romance and malice (all in good way).First, my favorite character was...

Ken Follett sure knows how to tell a story, and he oozes character development skill. I got to know every character in the title well, for better or for worse. There were manipulators, the manipulated, the highborn, the lower class, and everything in between. I was eager to discover what these people would do next, and who they would do it to.As a period piece, I cannot vouch for its authenticity (since I'm not an expert on London and South America in the late 1800s), but I can tell you that it