Fall Of Giants

I’m currently researching a period of time that a new series of books I shall be writing, in particular the end of the First World War, Spanish flu and life in Britain in the aftermath of a calamitous war.

One of the authors that I came across was Ken Follet. I must admit, I had never heard of this author, and typically, he writes in a genre that I am not really into, however, I took a punt on this book and boy, I wasn’t disappointed.

The book covers the social class during this time, pre and during the First World War and the immediate after effects that affected these classes. The story expertly weaves the reader through a complex storyline of Welsh mining working class who are governed by an aristocratic misogynistic asshole who is so far up his own ass he’s almost inside out. This guy is married to Russian princess and friends with a German landowner come politician who befriends an American career politician who works with Woodrow Wilson, of which, in and amongst the sex, the bitter rivalries, political show downs leads you as the reader to fall in love with some of the characters while reviling others. Prohibition, American crime lords, the suffragette movements and the female vote. 

This booked gripped me. It had everything, sex, conflict, the Russian revolution, the rise of Hitler, the First World War, social uprising of the working class, the fall of the aristocratic world and much much more. I couldn’t put it down. The story was a chunky one, Wilbur Smith’esque or James Clavell mammoth tale and written dare I say, better, and that is something as I aspire to live in the fantasy world of the Struan’s in Hong Kong, Gai Gin being my number one favourite book.

The only criticism I have of the story was there was no real mention about the Spanish Flu pandemic that would have affected all of these guys significantly, and for accuracy and another dynamic to the story, would have expected Follet to have included this in the story, the true number of deaths as a result of the flu will never been known but form academic modelling, the number is in the region of 100 million dead in 18 months and changed the way we lived for a considerable time. To miss this out was a mistake. 

Also, this book mentioned the Lusitania and the catalyst regarding the American involvement in the war,  but the Titanic wasn’t mentioned, and although the sinking of the Titanic,  these would have be the talking points at the time maybe had nothing to do with the story and maybe, me being a little churlish because I honestly couldn’t fault this book, but please, don’t let these small critiques stop you from reading this awesome book – I read psychological thrillers, serial killers and dark, hard boiled suspense books that make your toes curl and I would never have reached for this book if I hadn’t been researching in this period of time for a new series that I will be writing about. I throughly enjoyed the book and to my delight, there are another two books that follow on with the same character’s, leading all the way up to the 1960’s. These are already downloaded to my Kindle.

Hit the link and will take you to the Amazon listing if you want to grab yourself a fantastic read.