BOOKS: Never: Ken Follett

Dec. 18—In the opening of his latest novel, "Never," Ken Follett notes that, while researching "Fall of Giants," the first book in his massive 20th century trilogy, he was shocked to discover World War I was the "war that nobody wanted."

Leaders, populations and nations didn't want it to happen but, step by step, Europe then the world teetered toward war then discovered too late that they were all mired in one of history's bloodiest conflicts.

"I came to believe that it was all a tragic accident," Follett writes. "And I wondered, could that happen again?"

Follett's frightening musings are the basis for "Never," a novel about the U.S., China, North and South Korea and the Middle East teetering toward nuclear war.

As he has in past novels, Follett creates personable characters to carry his plot forward. Readers meet America's first female president; two intelligence officers who fall in love though they represent different nations; an undercover American agent in the Middle East; a Chinese intelligence officer who is the son of an even higher ranking officer in the Chinese government.

Each one of these characters must deal with personal dilemmas and office/government politics as well as the international politics that begins burying them in an escalating series of violent incidents.

As the fictional President Pauline Green says in the book and in the cover blurb, "Every catastrophe begins with a little problem that doesn't get fixed."

Through these characters, Follett unfolds his suspenseful plot of possible nuclear armageddon that feels all too real.

Given Follett's penchant for writing massive, epic historical fiction — "The Pillars of the Earth" and its sequels; "Fall of Giants" and its two sequels, he keeps readers guessing right up until the end of "Never's" 800 pages if it will end in this one volume.

Not to be a spoilsport, readers will have to open "Never" for themselves to find out. As with past Follett books, the pages fly by. The suspense lasts until the last sentence.