A Dangerous Fortune

Wow, was this an odd book to read. I could write a long, long list of things I didn't like about it or which just didn't make sense, but at the end of the day - it was strangely enjoyable in a guilty pleasure, daytime soap opera addiction kind of way. This reminded me a little of The Count of Monte Cristo, except that the plot is a lot more convoluted and involved. I wouldn't recommend this to just anyone though, I feel like a lot of people would have a rough tedious time with this one and I wouldn't blame them.

The story starts with a bunch of boys in a prestigious boarding school and an incident that happens when they are swimming in a quarry. A boy drowns and the verdict is misadventure. Years later, this incident continues to haunt and shape the decisions of the people directly and indirectly involved, many of whom belong to the great banking family, the Pilasters. A lot of drama happens spanning across all the classes of society. Sex, murder, brothels, financial crashes, adultery, betrayal, political maneuverings - they're all in here.

I'll start off by saying that this is my first time reading Ken Follett, and I've previously only heard of his Pillars of the Earth series. I started with this one mainly because the book was a lot less thick and therefore less intimidating. His writing style in this was... interesting, to say the least. It was incredibly simplistic and matter-of-fact that it was almost jarring to read sometimes. It sometimes also took me out of the 19th century setting, where one would expect prose to at least have more pizzazz. I'm not sure if this is just Follett's natural writing style, or if this was a deliberate decision he made so that the writing did not take away from the events happening on the page, because there is already a lot.

The characters generally ranged from mildly annoying to downright repulsive, with perhaps one or two exceptions (Solly remains my favourite, Rachel Bodwin's pretty fun too.). Even our main protagonist, Hugh Pilaster, gave me secondhand embarrassment for the first half of the book. Luckily we do see some character development with Hugh throughout the book, which is more than we can say for most other characters here.

Character motivations also ranged from very believable to unrealistic. I didn't like how the main romance played out almost all the time.- The fact that Maisie could already be hankering after Hugh literally two days after Solly died? That's just weird and kinda puts them on the same level as Augusta and Micky, doesn't it? But I did like how the primary villains in the book each had their own weak spots. Repulsive and self-interested though they may be, they were ultimately saved from being a caricature from having just that one chink in their armour, which proves to be their undoing - Augusta's love and obsessive protection for Edward, and Micky's absolute fear of his father.

For a book written in 1993, I appreciate that there wasn't as much misogyny and homophobia as there could have been - although I wasn't a fan of the twist that Edward turned to have been harbouring an affection for Micky all along. We just don't need that “men being attracted to men is the nail on the depraved coffin” stereotype anymore. I liked that we not only had a lot of primary female characters, but that they also held a lot of agency in their own right and also existed along the spectrum of good/bad characters. I liked that Augusta and Micky were almost equal in their villainy and that, in the end, because Micky sought to prove his dominance over Augusta in that he was the one disposing of her as soon as she became useless to him, she turned around and murdered him instead.

Obviously, for a book about a banking family, you can expect a good amount of politicking and plot points to revolve around finance. This was actually interesting to me because I work in a sort-of finance industry myself, but I can definitely imagine all of this flying over my head and becoming just so boring to read about if I wasn't in my current job.

I find it difficult to think of a target group I'd recommend this to even though I quite enjoyed it myself. If you like a ton of juicy drama in a Victorian setting, then maybe check this out.