Paper money, Ken Follet

Paper money (written by Ken Follet in 1977) is a fascinating book that I really enjoyed reading because of how entertaining it was to try and solve the mysteries and because the story became clearer as it advanced. The actions happen in the 1950s so lots of outdated items make their appearance.

For example, there’s a FAX machine in the post office that the characters use to send and receive messages by text. This obviously isn’t used anymore because of the internet and email messages. 

The novel has one of the best built characters I have ever seen, this character being Tony Cox.Tony Cox is a young and cold leader of a criminal gang who will rob a bank and take a million dollars with them. He will also get the prime minister to sleep with a girl in order to blackmail him, and cause his “suicide” by overdose of pills. By the end of the story, a teenager whose dad was killed by Tony, will avenge him and kill Tony’s mother and dog. This act will haunt Tony for a long time. 

It has to be said to those who want to read it that the way of introducing characters is kind of weird because the characters, who will narrate the story and therefore won’t permit the reader to understand what’s going on until they realize it themselves, don’t get linked until the middle of the story when Kevin Hart, a middle-aged hard working reporter for the Daily News Post realizes the prime minister’s suicide and the robbery of the bank are connected. He is going to connect the dots but sadly won’t be able to tell the story to the newspaper’s readers because of his supervisors.

I recommend this book to whoever enjoys reading detective novels or likes trying to solve puzzles, since they will have a lot of fun challenging themselves to solve the mystery and to expect what is to come. However, I also recommend it to anyone else who might be interested in it. 

- Ricard Barbany