Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: Ken Follett is my favorite author. I have read every single one of his books, bar none. Bar none, this was poorest book he has ever written. The settings, characters, and story line are classic -- you can pick almost everyone of them out of his previous WW II era novels. It has a lot of plot similarities to Eye of the Needle and Jackdaws.However, the overall plot is extremely predictable. You can see just what is going to happen after reading the first 25%. The details however revolve time and time and time again on a whole series of coincidences which is very out of character for Follett. I liked most of his books because the story line follows a logical flow with interesting bobs and weaves stemming from an initial premise. This was more like a low budget movie where things happen by coincidences and characters survive by inches or seconds so many times it becomes unbelievable and ridiculous. The climatic seen of the flight to England has to be the absolutely worst piece of writing ever by Follett. The events are ridiculous, the characters repeatedly make stupid errors, and the whole thing plays like a cheap B movie. For instance, are we to believe that the only character who knows how to fly the plane falls asleep during a night flight over water half an hour after almost being shot out of the sky -- and the inexperienced person that's awake lets her sleep? Or the king of them all, are we to believe the character waits till the airplane is within minutes of running out of gas before remembering to add the extra can of gas he has in the cockpit -- which he could have done 4 hours earlier? Or how about delaying a day the flight that will change the war and save thousands of lives so that the main character can go to the ballet? Or how about the German guard helping push the plane out for takeoff because he can't put two and two together? He must not be related to the other character that can throw a cigar into the cockpit of a small airplane at takeoff speed. Come on Mr. Follett, you can do better. Your novels Eye of the Needle, Pillars of the Earth, Key to Rebecca, Night over Water, Hammer of Eden, and Dangerous Fortune were classics.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining
Review: This is a fun book to read. If you allow yourself, you'll be swept away by the plot. For me it was a fast read. It was addictive almost in the way a soap opera is. You want to find out what happens next, but don't expect much depth to the characters. Certainly their histories are given and their emotions are reported, but it has about as much reality to it as a read-back by a court reporter. If you want a fun light easy adventure book, this is a good one. It's easy to get caught up in the plot but it's unlikely that you'll be sucked in to the point where the characters seem real to you; you'd have to suspend a lot more than your disbelief for that.
Rating:
Summary: Same song, different verse
Review: Follet is getting rather predictable. Clever and interesting but a "fill in the blank plot" - nothing new here.Buy something else.
Rating: 
Summary: Another action thriller - quick reading
Review: Another fun, quick, beach-side reading book from Follett- predictable plot yet full of action, scenery and interesting characters.
Rating: 
Summary: Fast and attractive book to read
Review: Ken Follet does it again. This new story about the resistance movements in Europe during WWII is both entertaining and fascinating. You will not be dissapointed by buying and reading this book. The characters will drag you well into their adventure and you will find it difficult to put the book down until you are finished.
Rating:
Summary: Follett Lands Another !
Review: Ken Follett entered the world of the resistance in his last novel, Jackdaws, (which I reviewed favorably last year). In that novel, the adventure occurred in occupied France and involved trained professionals with a very specific assignment. Hornet Flight is equally satisfying but of a totally different and, in some ways, much more complex fabric. The scene is occupied Denmark. The primary viewpoint is from a high school student who is slowly drawn into the Nazi resistance without training or coordination by superiors. The novel unfolds as part mystery, part adventure, part war story and, charmingly, part a coming-of-age story of a young man and woman who find each other. This book also contains a haunting pattern of family feuds, a policeman gone sour because his family has been publicly humiliated and who sees a chance to use his authority to get even, and young people who want to get on with their lives but find the war overwhelming and forcing them into dangerous (and fatal in at least two cases) contact with a larger and more vicious world. Follett ably presents the crisis Churchill faced with the improvement in German anti-bomber defenses at the very moment of the Soviet Union invasion, creating an opportunity for Britain to have a new ally. The British were in a life and death struggle, the Danes had been defeated but still retained flashes of resistance, and the Nazis were at the peak of their self-assurance and arrogance. This is a very nice novel, worth reading as a well-told story and as a reminder that at key crises, the actions of individuals and the courage of a few really do matter.
Rating:
Summary: A couple corrections
Review: Note: I have not actually read the whole book. I am writing this review mainly to counter a couple of points which previous reviewers have made: Martin V. Cusack (and/or Tom Arnold [it's the same review, down to the misspellings]) asks how many authors could get away with having a plane explode when a lit cigar is thrown at its fuselage. Probably not too many. Luckily, Follett does not try. In the scene in question, a lit cigar is thrown into an open cockpit which is soaked with gasoline. While Follett has his faults, I do not usually find plausibility to be one of them. Robert Busko says that one of the things he likes about Follett's writing is that the villains are completely nasty -- no grays. To the contrary, Follett usually tries to give his victims at least some mitigating sparks of humanity, and this book is no exception. As far as the book itself, as far as I read, I found it to be a decent read, but nowhere near some of the author's other work. As other reviewers have said, some coincidences seemed far-fetched, and I did not find the characters too compelling. If I would rate it now, I would give it a three. However, as I said, I did not read the ending.
Rating: 
Summary: WheelChocksAboard?
Review: The Denmark Resistance smuggled papers to Stockhom. Hid them in the Lufthansa wheel chocks. I think the chocks are left on the ground, not tossed up into the plane. Very improbable plot device.
Rating:
Summary: Hornet Flight
Review: I thought that the book hornet flight was a incredibally good book and it kept me interested all the way through. I don't think that you should be any younger than 13 to read it though because it has a very complex plot that younger children may not understand.
Rating:
Summary: Predictable yet intriguing
Review: It's 1941. Half of the British bombers attacking Germany are being shot out of the skies, tracked down by new technology called radar. With the Nazis invading Russia and a fierce British bombing campaign only days away, it comes down to the Danish Resistance -- and ultimately to an 18-year-old Dane named Harald Olufsen and a headstrong young Jewish ballet dancer -- to locate the source of this radar, record its operation, and alert England before it's too late. In opposition is of course Germany, but also a Danish police officer consumed with doing his duty and poisoned by the tragic maiming of his wife and the long-time grudge he holds against Harald's family. Perhaps because it's remarkably easy to read, HORNET FLIGHT is so simplistic and predictable it feels in places more like a children's novel than an adult suspense thriller. There's seldom any doubt about what will happen next, and even the deaths along the way don't evoke much sorrow. Although the final getaway does keep the pages turning, the only question raised is how the obvious outcome will be achieved. The techniques used to create suspense read exactly like what they are -- plot props. I found it disconcerting to be always one step ahead of the author and I wanted to scream at the characters to get their heads out of the clouds and make use of their brains. By the time their lightbulbs flash on, the reader has been bearing the burden of knowledge for fifty pages. Where HORNET FLIGHT wins its four stars, however, is in the incredibly real setting. Never does the narrative read like a textbook, never is information included simply for the sake of being information. The life of the Danish in their captured country is penned with such an apparently effortless accuracy that I kept forgetting Follett hadn't been there to observe it all. Suspenseful? No. But well written, interesting, and informative -- HORNET FLIGHT is definitely all that.
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