Edge of Eternity
by Ken Follett, Dutton Adult September 2014

This is the third and last installment of Ken Follett’s Century trilogy.  The first (IMHO the best) was Fall of Giants covering events up to and including WWI, the second Winter of the World went through WWI.  To write this saga Follett has five families, Russian, German, English, Welsh and American.  This last story sees the grandchildren and great grandchildren in the midst of historical events in the second half of the twentieth century.

It is all here, the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Civil Rights movement, the Kennedy administration, the development of glasnost in Russia, and the Solidarity movement in Poland, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King and the rise of rock and roll.  The history is personalized because in each of these events there is a key character right at hand to give a first person description.  To enjoy this story you must accept the oddity that these family members are so handily positioned to describe these events.  The story is a mile wide and an inch deep.  Characters are either good or evil, no in-betweens and no growth to these characters. Definitely a soap opera read.

I read a copy provided by the publisher