Edge of Eternity

2014 | Historical Fiction | 1184 pages

Edge of Eternity is the epic, final novel in Ken Follett’s captivating and hugely ambitious Century trilogy. On its own or read in sequence with Fall of Giants and Winter of the World, this is an irresistible and spellbinding epic about the fight for personal freedom set during the Cold War.

A Fight Against Injustice

1961, and in the United States George Jakes, a bright young lawyer in the Kennedy administration and fierce supporter of the civil rights movement, boards a Greyhound bus in Washington with Verena, an employee of Martin Luther King whom he is in love with, to protest against segregation.

A Rising Tide of Danger

In East Germany, teacher Rebecca Hoffmann finds her entire life has been a lie as she is targeted by the secret police, even as her younger brother, Walli, dreams of escape across the Berlin Wall to Britain. In Russia, activist Tania Dvorkin narrowly evades capture for producing an illegal news-sheet, her actions all the more perilous because her brother, Dimka, is an emerging star of the Communist Party.

A Cold War that could Eliminate the World Forever

In a sweeping tale that began in 1911, the descendants of five families will now find their true destiny as they fight for their individual freedom in a world facing the mightiest clash of superpowers it has ever seen.

First chapter

1961

Rebecca Hoffmann was summoned by the secret police on a rainy Monday in 1961. It began as an ordinary morning. Her husband drove her to work in his tan Trabant 500. The graceful old streets of central Berlin still had gaps from wartime bombing, except where new concrete buildings stood up like ill-matched false teeth. Hans was thinking about his job as he drove. ‘The courts serve the judges, the lawyers, the police, the government – everyone except the victims of crime,’ he said. ‘This is to be expected in Western capitalist countries, but under Communism the courts ought surely to serve the people. My colleagues don’t seem to realize that.’ Hans worked for the Ministry of Justice.

Reviews

“Edge of Eternity is as compulsively readable a mighty page-turner as its two predecessors.” – The Seattle Times

“Follett expertly chronicles the pivotal events of the closing decades of the 20th century through the eyes of a vast array of deftly-drawn characters.” – Publishers Weekly

“There’s a reason he’s a bestseller — he can tell a story . . . It’s like watching a high-end boxset.” – The Times