Falling Giants and Hurley continued

Having just had a week or so away on holiday, I took my trusty kindle with three new books downloaded: Ken Follett's Fall of Giants, and Graham Hurley's Price of Darkness and No Lovelier Death.  I managed to get through the first two books - and thoroughly enjoyed both!

My experience with Ken Follett had been through his books about building cathedrals in the middle ages in England - World without end and Pillars of the Earth.  These were extremely well written books-  great stories, feelings of the time, technically interesting and left you with a feeling of getting to know some new characters rather well!   In fact I took from World without end a quote which I have on my wall. The context was a Sister called Claris, talking with a dying outlaw.  The outlaw asked "Are you afraid you'll burn in hell?" The story goes on with: "It was a question she normally sidestepped, but she felt this dying outlaw deserved a true answer, "I believe that what I do becomes part of me" she said.  "When I'm brave and strong. and care for children and the sick and the poor, I become a better person.  And when I'm cruel, or cowardly or tell lies, or get drunk, I turn into someone less worthy, and I can't respect myself.  Thats the divine retribution I believe in".  I liked this - although a Christian friend of mine saw it and dismissed it as being unbiblical.  Funny, but I thought it reflected Jesus' attitude quite well!

So, back to the Fall of Giants.  What a great expose of World War 1!  I had always known that an assination was a  key trigger for the war - but now I understand why and how!  It seems as if Ken Follett was very careful to present the facts intertwined with the stories of his characters and so history comes alive!  The fact that the book starts before the war commenced right through to the aftermath gives you a context around it.  I was surprised to read how late the USA entered the war - and why - and then seemed to take over.  The stupid strategic decisions made were obvious.  The soviet revolution was also explained beautifully through the Russian working class characters (it was a tad tedious in some of the Russion revolution part - but only a tad) - and the class tensions in the UK evident as characters from the aristocracy, their "help" and the coal miners interacted throughout the events - including the issue of the vote for women and the working class.  They were very believable characters that were no cardboard cut-outs.  Very hard to put down.

But all good things came to end and the ending was good and fitting.

So, without a breath, I took back up with Graham Hurley's the price of darkness.  Once again I entered the world of Faraday and Winter - their lives, hobbies, relationships, families (or lack of).  This time, Winter went undercover to try to undo the ill-gotton gains of the ex drug baron.  Again two stories - but this time they came together at the end.  The only sad part was the loss of the Maddox character - the classy high class prostitute that saw Winter survive his brain tunour in the previous book.  Will she return in future stories?  She does own half his house...but she just dissapeared as a character!  Nice ending for Winter in the book (not ending-ending)!!!  I wonder if Hurley planned that at the beginning?

Now on to No Lovelier Death. The first chapters show great promise - with Winter in a new role......  I will see.