Night over Water

Great stories interwoven to amplify a fairy tale ending. You gotta love Follett stories as they tell some history to excite the fiction.

The separate story lines were very well done and enjoyable. And just enough mystery to hold my interest. But I thought that the sensually explicit passages were somewhat out of place, contrived, awkward, and unnecessary.

Ken Follett is as good as always … and then some. I strongly recommend this as a great read for everyone.

Good book about a late 1930s flight of a Boeing 314 Pan American Clipper from London to New York (via stops in Ireland and Newfoundland). The 314 was a very large and luxurious, 4 engine seaplane (called the flying boat). It had a very short lifespan as a commercial airliner (due to the outbreak of WWII).In the story, the flight takes place on the very day that England declares war on Germany. There are about 20 passengers onboard (mostly very wealthy) and a crew of about 7 or 8. Everyone onboard has an interesting history and personal agenda. Since the flight is 25-30 hours long (through very rough weather), there’s plenty of time for the passengers and crew to mix and mingle…..and there’s a ton of intrigue.The first part of the book is interesting as you get to know all the characters and what they’re up to.The middle section is wordy. Seemed like every time the story’s focus shifted from one character to another, the new character’s whole history had to be retold. This happens over and over again. I skimmed quite a bit through this section.The book’s ending is 5 star, as all the intrigue plays itself out. It’s definitely worthwhile to stick around for the end.When I finished the book, I checked out the Boing 314 Documentary on youtube (4:27). It pretty much shows you the 314’s features and attributes that were described (very accurately) in the book.

It's 1939. England has just declared war on Germany! And, the luxurious Pan Am Clipper, a gigantic seaplane, is set to make its final flight from Southampton, England to New York. That is the setting of this exciting, nostalgic thriller written by Ken Follett, the famed author of Eye of the Needle and The Pillars of the Earth. Being a fan of World War II movies and novels, I loved this book! My only disappointment was that Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet were not on the passenger list. But, this $675 round-trip luxury flight does have nineteen interesting guests that rival any Bogart movie cast.The guests include a fascist marquis and his family, a grumpy Russian princess, a talkative movie actress, a Jewish nuclear physicist fleeing Germany, a baron, undercover British and American police, four American industrialists, a British millionaire chasing his wife, and a jewel thief. Add to them, terrified flight engineer Eddie Deakin, who is under orders from his wife's kidnappers to await further instructions from passenger Tom Luther. Believe it or not, Ken Follett manages to develop all of these characters, making the reader either root for or against every person in the novel...Great job!Tom Luther informs Eddie Deakin that his mysterious boss expects Eddie to cause the thirty hour flight to land short of their destination, so that they can remove a passenger. But who, why, and how? The guessing game begins here and ends at the Bay of Fundy, Newfoundland. This is the main plot, but there are many delightful subplots.The subplots include: the shoemaker owner, Nancy Lenehan, trying to maintain control of her company from her treacherous brother, Peter Black; Mervyn Lovesey trying to win his wife back from American, Mark Alder; the Oxenford daughters trying to escape the control of their fascist father; the jewel thief, Harry Marks, a.k.a. Harry Vandenpost, wooing Margaret Oxenford, while pondering the theft of famous jewels owned by her mother, the Marchioness; the fates of the fleeing German Jew Carl Hartmann and gangster Frank Gordon. And finally we have the wishy-washy Diana Lovesey flip-flopping between her husband Mervyn and Mark Alder. There are more, but these are the most noteworthy. Somehow the author ties all of these events together into an amazing climax!This novel reminded me of an airplane version of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, but without Hercule Poirot. This is a must read for historical fiction and Ken Follett fans alike.

Don't misunderstand me. I've never read a Ken Follett book that wasn't good. And I watched Debbie Does Dallas when I was 11- my cousins found it. (If you're going hide your stash in your dresser drawer don't make your kids put your laundry away. Their own? Sure. Yours? Absolutely not.)But practically the open people who aren't having the graphic details of their sex at the most unbelievable times are the married ones. Well, a couple of them are as well; just not with their spouses.And only at the silliest times: I hate my parents, let's have sex; my brother just tried to kill me, wanna do it.There's no need to go into graphic detail to prove that that the book is for adults. If you're an adult, ( or, even a junior high student), you don't have to shown how it's done; you already know.Now that I think about when it written, I'm starting to wonder if it was something the publishers were requiring at that time. Remember Ralph Peters' "Red Army"? World War Three was raging with the Soviets overrunning Europe and the protagonist has to take time out to start up a love affair with a woman who has no other purpose for being in the book.

Make for a comedy of errors in this superb tale. Starting out as a drama, it slowly unwinds while engaging the reader in trying to figure it all out. However no one can outsmart Mr. Follett as he masterfully leads us to an unexpected but quite satisfying conclusion. Fun too!

Bought as a gift