Night Over Water

Night Over Water by Ken Follett is an historical fiction page-turner that will keep readers up overnight devouring the story.

Just before England declared war on Germany in 1939, Pan American Airline had begun service of the Clipper, a luxury airliner that took passengers from England to New York in only 30 hours - as opposed to 4 or 5 days by ship. Service was suspended with the outbreak of war.

Night Over Water takes place on an imaginary last flight - just days after England declares war. The plane is filled with people who can afford to leave England - either to return home to America, to flee the Fascists, or to flee Parliament because they themselves are Fascist.

From the very first pages, Follett shows why he is a brilliant writer - his characters come to life like few others. Regardless of setting - and his are usually pretty spectacular - the interactions between his characters are what make him a master storyteller and draw in readers like a drug.

Passengers on the Clipper flight comprise all of society from a rich man fleeing to avoid arrest to a man being extradited back to the US on murder charges, from a boy who is just learning to assert himself against his tyrannical father to an older physicist fleeing the Nazis, the characters mix in ways that would have been impossible given any other setting. This novel captures the feelings of a world on the brink of war. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Read it today - you will be captured until the last sentence - which made me laugh out loud with delight.

Follett, Ken. (1991). Night Over Water. New York: Signet Books.