The Man from St. Petersburg

Historical fiction at its finest. Do you root for the assassin or not? Of course not, but what a conundrum while reading this novel. All the characters are well written, time frame well researched. Just a great book you will not want to put down once you start reading.

This story is set London in early 1914 as Germany was mobilizing and war was inevitable to those that history would prove astute. France was in peril even if England assisted, and the British Empire itself would be at risk if the Germans prevailed. So, The First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Winston Churchill of the Liberal government, armed with a note from King George, convinces The (conservative) Earl of Walden to negotiate a secret treaty with his wife's nephew, Alex Orlov, also nephew to the Czar, for Russia to enter into the fray. The anarchists learn of this plot however, and Feliks, The Man from St. Petersburg, has five pounds sterling and a determination to assassinate Alex Orlov on English soil.This story is rich with the history that bored us in school, that stuff about Victorian pomp and starving Russian peasants floundering for a new political order, the prelude to communism. Follett gives us a sense of the debauchery bred from wealth and privilege, and the desperation born of inhumanities in an era gone by. He introduces us to men threatened by women's suffrage, others terrorized of government, and through them, we better understand why society changed, or perhaps mutated. That stuff is woven seamlessly into a story of intrigue without long speeches or tedious lectures. We get our lesson without having to take notes.My only quarrel is Follett's propensity to interrupt with back-story, once with back-story within back-story if I'm not mistaken. It's a minor irritation though, one scratch and it's gone, because we are more worried about how his characters are going to sort out the mess they're in. And in the end, you're going to believe The Man from St. Petersburg might have been.

Follett does a great job of developing and describing the four main characters in the novel. He also does an excellent job of describing the setting and time in which the novel takes place (pre WWI). Once you begin this book you should set aside some time because you find yourself reading all day. This definitely ranks in my top ten.

The Man from St. Petersburg is a forgotten Follett classic. Simpler than his more recent works, a surprisingly thrilling historical novel that tells the story of a resilient Russian revolutionary who travels to pre-WWI England to try to create an international incident. Keeps the reader guessing until the end.

Follet is a Swiss watch-maker and this book a Rolex among thrillers. The plot ticks along with fantastic pacing and suspense. Secrets come out at incredibly tense moments. With apparent ease, Follet makes the reader care for all the main characters, and two of them want to kill each other. This novel has it ALL: great plot, great characters, great descriptions, great dialogue, great pacing, a great climax. No other novel in the thriller/espionage field comes close.

Anyone who has read a lot of Follett knows that he usually chooses a distinct time and place in history for his setting. While Pillars of the Earth (set in 1150) and The Eye of the Needle (WWII) are excellent, this WWI-set novel is a masterpiece. I enjoy anything Follett puts to paper, but this goes beyond even my highest expectations. There are some subtle turns-of-phrase in this work that show us why Follett is a genuis. You will enjoy his Feliks character even when you feel you sometimes shouldn't! A definite 11 on a 1 to 10 scale