A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follett Review

"A Dangerous Fortune" is a novel to become lost in. Its 600-pages are heaving with melodrama and intrigue, and the plot twists and turns relentlessly as the reader becomes ever more intricately involved with the fortunes of a wealthy banking family, the Pilasters, in late nineteenth century London. The entire story unfolds over the course of a quarter of a century, and it's all enjoyable fare, provided the reader takes with a pinch of salt some of the story's more far-fetched elements.

The novel slowly charts the decline and fall of the Pilaster clan, in the end brought down by greed and complacency and the ambitious machinations of the two 'baddies'; Augusta Pilaster, the scheming matriarch of the family, and Micky Miranda, a villain and manipulative hanger-on. Hugh Pilaster, the down-trodden and honest poor relation, spends most of the novel at the receiving end of their ruthlessness.

"A Dangerous Fortune", first published in 1993, continued Ken Follett's brief career divergence into sweeping historical novels, kicked off by the monolithic "The Pillars of the Earth" in 1989 which earned him legions upon legions of new devotees.

"A Dangerous Fortune" follows very much in its footsteps. Follett is a self-confessed meticulous planner with everything he writes, and unfortunately here, the rigorously water-tight plotting makes many aspects of the story ring less than true. Too many coincidences, and too many continual strokes of luck for the 'baddies' set against equal strokes of misfortune for the 'goodies', begin to feel predictable. By the end of the novel the complications of the plot are sewn-up a little too conveniently.

Besides that quibble, the writing itself is lucid, fast-paced and genuinely fun to read. The houses, banks, gentlemen's clubs and brothels of Victorian London are brought to life convincingly, and the characters, despite often being predictable, are engaging and emotive. The evil Augusta is deliciously love-to-hate-able, whereas the protagonist Hugh is often jarringly pleasant. Add to this mixture the glamour and decadence of the super-rich, as well as an under-current of gruesome murder and carnal passions, and the reader is served up an enjoyable and absorbing book.

For this reason, Follett can be forgiven the formulaic, somewhat over-tidy nature of his story.