Two-thirds of the way through this book I was prepared to give it a rave review. The book has all the elements of a good action thriller: Compelling, well-drawn villain, sympathetic hero, interesting supporting characters (including one who's a bisexual, Nazi-collaborating seductress by day, night club belly dancer by night!), a decent amount of sex, and an exotic setting. I especially liked Follett's technique of shifting points of view, so that we get to see what characters who we've already been introduced to look like to others who are meeting them for the first time.

However, with the initial premise having reached a natural conclusion about 2/3 of the way through, Follett ditches most of the subtlety of the preceding story for a somewhat contrived series of chase and action sequences. There's a theory of writing which holds that conflict is at the heart of a good story, so the more setbacks, complications, and dilemmas you throw at your character the more exciting the story will be. Unfortunately, the action over the last third of this book begins to resemble one of those old silent film series where an oily, caped villain, believing he's dispatched the pure-hearted but somewhat incompetent hero, has the damsel tied to a railroad track and twirls his mustache while a locomotive approaches. That doesn't literally happen in this book, but that's what the last third felt like. The denouement also felt somewhat abrupt and trite.

3,5 Libertatea este cel mai de preț bun al omului. În timpul celui de al doilea război mondial, Egiptul se afla de 50 de ani sub ocupație engleză. Ca orice popor asuprit își doreau eliberarea, chiar dacă aceasta venea sub forma ocupației naziste. Un roman de spionaj alert și intens, dar totuși autorul are tendința de a lungii finalul și parcă asta strică ceva din poveste.

Ken Follett not at his best. I have read several of Follett’s books and this one was not close to meeting my expectations. I had to struggle to finish the book since it was hugely predictable. The sex scenes were obviously thrown in to appeal to a certain audience - totally unnecessary to the story’s plot. I do not recommend this book.