Column of Fire - Ken Follett

A Column of Fire is the third book in Ken Follett's Kingsbridge series. It's not so much a sequel as the events in this book take place two hundred some years beyond the events of World Without End, which in turn took place hundreds of years beyond Pillars of the Earth. And to that end, Column of Fire seems hundreds of years short of the mark set by the earlier books in the series. 

Both of the earlier volumes dealt directly with the people of Kingsbridge and the drama contained within one town. There were clear simple villains and heroes and heroines to root for. The same is true in CoF, but instead of the character development driving the plot, here we had plot driving the characters and not much development. Characters were introduced and summarily killed off, or just never mentioned again as their narrative seemed to be tied up conveniently. 

Perhaps it's a necessity of the time period described that the scope of the novel would expand so much wider than Kingsbridge, but in the end, the narrative tension fell a bit flat. When you use plot points that are easily searched on google and the outcomes so easily found, then narrative tension cannot be maintained. Will the bad men succeed in their assassination attempts of Queen Elizabeth? Of course not. 

In the earlier books, the tension and climax happened to fictional people and the outcomes were unknown. Each character was in danger and suffered real harm. None of that occurred here and the novel was the worse off for it. I feel a little bit like Follett phoned this one in.

3/5 Stars.