Synopses & Reviews
View our Ken Follett feature page.
Ken Follett's World Without End was a global phenomenon, a work of grand historical sweep, beloved by millions of readers and acclaimed by critics. Fall of Giants is his magnificent new historical epic. The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh—as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.
Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams enters a man's world in the Welsh mining pits...Gus Dewar, an American law student rejected in love, finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson's White House...two orphaned Russian brothers, Grigori and Lev Peshkov, embark on radically different paths half a world apart when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution...Billy's sister, Ethel, a housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts, takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German embassy in London...
These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as, in a saga of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, Fall of Giants moves seamlessly from Washington to St. Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty. As always with Ken Follett, the historical background is brilliantly researched and rendered, the action fast-moving, the characters rich in nuance and emotion. It is destined to be a new classic.
In future volumes of The Century Trilogy, subsequent generations of the same families will travel through the great events of the rest of the twentieth century, changing themselves-and the century itself. With passion and the hand of a master, Follett brings us into a world we thought we knew, but now will never seem the same again.
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Review
“Gripping.”
The New York Times “This spy thriller is Follett at his best.”People
“Code to Zero’s split-second suspense proves that nearly a quarter century after his breakthrough novel, Eye of the Needle…[Follett is] still a hell of a storyteller.”Entertainment Weekly
“Absorbing, tightly plotted…Suspense junkies won't be disappointed.”Publishers Weekly
“Starts off fast and never slows down…Follett creates a rousing story that never flags.”Chicago Tribune
“Flawlessly plotted, tautly told and suspenseful.”Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A winner…a jolting joyride.”St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Review
"An adrenaline pumping thriller." —
Associated Press "Movie-style twists and hairbreadth escapes." —Wall Street Journal
"Undeniably suspenseful." —Entertainment Weekly
Review
"
Fall of Giants is a book for you to savor, one in which you can lose yourself for hours on end. It is a big book that tells a big story, but it is one you will not want to end."
-The Huffington Post
"Follett's latest work is epic in scale, meticulously researched and deftly weaves together historical fact, fictional characters and engrossing storytelling."
-The Associated Press
"Fall of Giants stands with Ken Follett's best... Fall of Giants is classic Follett. It's long - almost 1,000 pages; it's populated with hundreds of characters whose lives are intertwined; it's set on a tumultuous world stage; it's a good read....Everything in this novel is oversized, from the scope of history it covers to the characters he creates. It's a book that will suck you in, consume you for days or weeks, depending upon how quick a reader you are, then let you out the other side both entertained and educated. That's quite the feat."
-USA Today
"A big Book, Follett's hugely ambitious saga is a sweeping success. Ken Follett has hit another one out of the park with the initial installment of the hugely ambitious Century Trilogy. His fans will rejoice at the richness, complexity, historical sweep and simmering lust in a saga spanning the years 1911 to 1923."
-Newark Star Ledger
"A dark novel, motivated by an unsparing view of human nature and a clear-eyed scrutiny of an ideal peace. It is not the least of Follett's feats that the reader finishes this near 1000-page book intrigued and wanting more."
-Chicago Sun-Times
"Follett's greatest virtue as a novelist that he has been able to bring forward a writing style he perfected in his earlier thrillers....Essentially, he's writing several interrelated books at once, without ever losing the inevitable forward impulse. And while it sounds bizarre to consider a book this huge a 'page-turner,' that's exactly what Fall of Giants is."
-The Seattle Times
Follett is particularly adept at balancing multiple storylines, patiently building a portrait of interconnected lives. And he consistently gets the physical details right... Perhaps the major reasons for the novel's ultimate success are Follett's comprehensive grasp of the historical record and his ability to integrate research into a colorful, engaging narrative."
-The Washington Post
"[Follett] meticulously reconstructs an era and leads us through the follies and occasional heroics of its protagonists real and imaginary. He is masterly in conveyers so much drama and historical information so vividly...Grippingly told, and readable to the end."
-New York Times Book Review
Review
“Brilliant…breathless high adventure.”—
Time
“Magnificent…pulse-racing…the runaway hit of the year.”—People
“From the opening sentence to the gripping climax…Ken Follett delivers the surefire suspense readers have come to expect.”—Los Angeles Times
“It can keep you up all night—grabbed, gripped, and thrilled.”—Chicago Sun-Times
“The most exciting novel in years.”—The Cincinnati Enquirer
Review
“The books celebration of uncommon courage and unlikely heroes couldnt be better timed…a distaff
Dirty Dozen.”—
People
“With its vivid characters, suspense, patriotism, and examples of supreme bravery, Jackdaws is a fitting tribute to the women of World War II.”—Orlando Sentinel
“Compelling reading…great entertainment.”—The Baltimore Sun
“A very entertaining, very cinematic thriller about a ragtag, all-female band of British agents, code-named Jackdaws, sent to blow up a key telephone exchange in France on the eve of D-Day…[Jackdaws] promises to be one of Folletts most popular novels ever.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Cleverly plotted…the characters are sharply drawn and fully realized [and] the pace is rapid-fire.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“A sort of distaff dirty (half) dozen. They dont come any tougher, smarter, braver, or, for that matter, deadlier than Major Felicity (call her ‘Flick) Clairet. Quintessentially female and sexy as all get out, she kills without compunction if thats the way the mission goes.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Carried off with the kind of galvanic skill that was the hallmark of Folletts early books…a memorable, complex heroine.”—Publishing News
“For fans of the 60s movie The Dirty Dozen, this could be called The Perfumed Six…Its certainly pleasant to have the main characters be female.”—The Buffalo News
“[Follett is] dead on-target…updating that World War II workhorse in which a gang of misfits goes behind Nazi lines to do the impossible…thoroughly entertaining.”—Booklist
“Suspenseful, gripping.”—New York Post
“Deeply satisfying.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Follett delivers one of his most entertaining thrillers.”—Denver Post
Review
"Follett...hits the mark again with this dramatic and tragic tale...[He] starts out fast and keeps up the pace." -
Publishers Weekly
Review
“Follett is masterly in conveying so much drama and historical information so vividly…grippingly told.”—
The New York Times Book Review “Fall of Giants is classic Follett.”—USA Today
“Follett conjures the winds of war.”—The Washington Post
“Grand in scope, scale, and story.”—The Associated Press
“A suspenseful epic.”—The Seattle Times
“Tantalizing.”—Newsday
“Fascinating, in a big way.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Review
"
Fall of Giants is a book for you to savor, one in which you can lose yourself for hours on end. It is a big book that tells a big story, but it is one you will not want to end."
-The Huffington Post
"Follett's latest work is epic in scale, meticulously researched and deftly weaves together historical fact, fictional characters and engrossing storytelling."
-The Associated Press
"Fall of Giants stands with Ken Follett's best... Fall of Giants is classic Follett. It's long - almost 1,000 pages; it's populated with hundreds of characters whose lives are intertwined; it's set on a tumultuous world stage; it's a good read....Everything in this novel is oversized, from the scope of history it covers to the characters he creates. It's a book that will suck you in, consume you for days or weeks, depending upon how quick a reader you are, then let you out the other side both entertained and educated. That's quite the feat."
-USA Today
"A big Book, Follett's hugely ambitious saga is a sweeping success. Ken Follett has hit another one out of the park with the initial installment of the hugely ambitious Century Trilogy. His fans will rejoice at the richness, complexity, historical sweep and simmering lust in a saga spanning the years 1911 to 1923."
-Newark Star Ledger
"A dark novel, motivated by an unsparing view of human nature and a clear-eyed scrutiny of an ideal peace. It is not the least of Follett's feats that the reader finishes this near 1000-page book intrigued and wanting more."
-Chicago Sun-Times
"Follett's greatest virtue as a novelist that he has been able to bring forward a writing style he perfected in his earlier thrillers....Essentially, he's writing several interrelated books at once, without ever losing the inevitable forward impulse. And while it sounds bizarre to consider a book this huge a 'page-turner,' that's exactly what Fall of Giants is."
-The Seattle Times
Follett is particularly adept at balancing multiple storylines, patiently building a portrait of interconnected lives. And he consistently gets the physical details right... Perhaps the major reasons for the novel's ultimate success are Follett's comprehensive grasp of the historical record and his ability to integrate research into a colorful, engaging narrative."
-The Washington Post
"[Follett] meticulously reconstructs an era and leads us through the follies and occasional heroics of its protagonists real and imaginary. He is masterly in conveyers so much drama and historical information so vividly...Grippingly told, and readable to the end."
-New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ken Follett comes this spellbinding epic set in twelfth-century England. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of the lives entwined in the building of the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known-and a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother.
View our Ken Follett feature page.
Learn more about The Pillars of the Earth miniseries on Starz.
Synopsis
In this classic Cold War thriller, #1 New York Times bestselling author Ken Follett puts his own electrifying twist on the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. "Code to Zero's split-second suspense proves that...[Follett is] a hell of storyteller."—Entertainment Weekly
Synopsis
January, 1958—the darkest hour of the cold war and the early dawn of the space race. On the launch pad at Cape Canaveral sits America’s best hope to catch up with the Russians—the
Explorer I satellite. But at the last moment, the launch is delayed due to weather, even though everyone can see it is a perfectly sunny day.
The real reason for the delay rests deep in the mind of NASA scientist who has awoken that morning to find his memory completely erased. Knowing only that he’s being followed and watched at every turn, he must find the clues to his own identity before he can discover who is responsible. But even more terrible is the dark secret that they wanted him to forget. A secret that can destroy the Explorer I—and America’s future…
A Main Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Guild ® and Doubleday Book Club
Synopsis
As a Christmas Eve blizzard whips out of the north, several people converge on a remote family house. As the storm worsens, the emotional sparks-jealousies, distrust, sexual attraction, rivalries-crackle, desperate secrets are revealed, hidden traitors and unexpected heroes emerge.
Synopsis
In his own bestselling tradition of Eye of the Needle and The Key to Rebecca, Ken Follett once again strikes Nazi pay dirt as a gang of all-female saboteurs go behind German lines.
Synopsis
View our Ken Follett feature page. Ken Follett and the intrigue of World War II-"a winning formula" (Entertainment Weekly) if ever there was one. With his riveting prose and unerring instinct for suspense, the #1 New York Times bestselling author takes to the skies over Europe, where a young Danish man-equipped with only an old derelict Hornet Moth biplane at his disposal-will change the course of the war...
Synopsis
The #1 international bestseller set in Afghanistan...
NOW IN TRADE PAPERBACK.
“Vintage Follett…This is his most ambitious novel and it
succeeds admirably.” —USA Today
“May be Ken Follett’s finest yet…The suspense mounts as swiftly as Afghan villagers running to escape Russian guns—and the pages will turn just as fast.” —Cosmopolitan
Synopsis
Ken Folletts The Key to Rebecca took readers and critics by storm when first published more than fifteen years ago. Today, it remains one of the best espionage novels ever written.
A brilliant and ruthless Nazi master agent is on the loose in Cairo. His mission is to send Rommels advancing army the secrets that will unlock the citys doors. In all of Cairo, only two people can stop him. One is a down-on-his-luck English officer no one will listen to. The other is a vulnerable young Jewish girl….
Synopsis
"D day is approaching. They don't know where or when, but the Germans know it'll be soon, and for Felicity "Flick" Clairet, the stakes have never been higher. A senior agent in the ranks of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) responsible for sabotage, Flick has survived to become one of Britain's most effective operatives in northern France. She knows that the Germans' ability to thwart the Allied attack depends upon their lines of communication, and in the days before the invasion, no target is of greater strategic importance than the largest telephone exchange in Europe." But when Flick and her Resistance leader husband try a direct, head-on assault that goes horribly wrong, her world turns upside down. Her group destroyed, her husband missing, her superiors unsure of her, her own confidence badly shaken, she has one last chance at the target, but the challenge, once daunting, is now near-impossible. The new plan requires an all-woman team, none of them professionals, to be assembled and trained within days. Codenamed the Jackdaws, they will attempt to infiltrate the exchange under the noses of the Germans - but the Germans are waiting for them now and have plans of their own. There are secrets Flick does not know - secrets within the German ranks, secrets among her hastily-recruited team, secrets among those she trusts the most. And as the hours tick down to the point of no return, most daunting of all, there are secrets within herself.
Synopsis
Ken Follett follows his bestsellers Jackdaws and Code to Zero with an extraordinary novel of early days of World War II...
It is June 1941 and the war is not going well for England. Across the North Sea, eighteen-year-old Harald Olufsen takes a shortcut on the German-occupied Danish island of Sande an discovers an astonishing sight that will change the momentum of the war. He must get word to England-except that he has no way to get there. He has only an old derelict Hornet Moth biplane rusting away in a ruined church: a plane so decrepit that it is unlikely ever to get off the ground...even if Harald knew how to fly it.
Synopsis
Ken Follett’s magnificent new historical epic begins, as five interrelated families move through the momentous dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage. A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man’s world in the mining pits.…An American law student rejected in love finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson’s White House.… A housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with a German spy.…And two orphaned Russian brothers embark on radically different paths when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution.
From the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty, Fall of Giants takes us into the inextricably entangled fates of five families—and into a century that we thought we knew, but that now will never seem the same again.…
Synopsis
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ken Follett comes this spellbinding epic set in twelfth-century England. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of the lives entwined in the building of the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known-and a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother.
View our Ken Follett feature page.
Learn more about The Pillars of the Earth miniseries on Starz.
Synopsis
View our Ken Follett feature page. Ken Follett and the intrigue of World War II-"a winning formula" (Entertainment Weekly) if ever there was one. With his riveting prose and unerring instinct for suspense, the #1 New York Times bestselling author takes to the skies over Europe, where a young Danish man-equipped with only an old derelict Hornet Moth biplane at his disposal-will change the course of the war...
Synopsis
Ken Folletts The Key to Rebecca took readers and critics by storm when first published more than fifteen years ago. Today, it remains one of the best espionage novels ever written.
A brilliant and ruthless Nazi master agent is on the loose in Cairo. His mission is to send Rommels advancing army the secrets that will unlock the citys doors. In all of Cairo, only two people can stop him. One is a down-on-his-luck English officer no one will listen to. The other is a vulnerable young Jewish girl….
Synopsis
In this classic Cold War thriller, #1 New York Times bestselling author Ken Follett puts his own electrifying twist on the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. "Code to Zero's split-second suspense proves that...[Follett is] a hell of storyteller."—Entertainment Weekly
Synopsis
Ken Follett follows his bestsellers Jackdaws and Code to Zero with an extraordinary novel of early days of World War II...
It is June 1941 and the war is not going well for England. Across the North Sea, eighteen-year-old Harald Olufsen takes a shortcut on the German-occupied Danish island of Sande an discovers an astonishing sight that will change the momentum of the war. He must get word to England-except that he has no way to get there. He has only an old derelict Hornet Moth biplane rusting away in a ruined church: a plane so decrepit that it is unlikely ever to get off the ground...even if Harald knew how to fly it.
About the Author
Ken Follett was twenty-seven when he wrote Eye of the Needle, an award-winning thriller that became an international bestseller. After several more successful thrillers, he surprised everyone with Pillars of the Earth, about the building of a cathedral in the Middle Ages, which continues to captivate readers all over the world. Its long-awaited sequel, World Without End, was a national and international bestseller. Follett's new magnificent historical epic, The Century Trilogy, opened with the bestselling Fall of Giants, which introduced readers to five interrelated families navigating the 20th century. He lives in England with his wife, Barbara Follett.