Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I picked this book up on a recent trip, during a connection through London, where it's already published. (I don't really have the Kindle edition, I have a softcover, but Amazon doesn't allow reviews for any edition except Kindle as I write this.) I've read so much fiction in my life that only pretty good writing will hold my interest. This is high quality writing with quite good characterization. The viewpoint of the story switches among the main characters. Each section for a character starts off with a first-person narrative, and then switches to a traditional third-person narrative for that character. This results in overlap. It's common to see the same timeline covered from multiple viewpoints. That's tricky writing to pull off, but Archer is a pro, so he does it pretty well. The era is early twentieth century, between the World Wars and leading up to World War II. It's clear that WWII will play a big part in the entire story, and in fact it begins just as this book ends. The protagonist is from a lower class family, and the early part of the book covers his attempts to rise via his education. The plot is fairly predictable. There are a few twists that I didn't see, but the broad outline became clear early on. I was still engaged enough with the characters to want to see the story through. And that leads to the biggest criticism: as other reviewers have noted, this is just the beginning of a series. The end of the book leaves all of the major plot elements unresolved. So if you like your fiction to contain a story wrapped up neatly in a bow at the end, you probably ought to avoid this one until the story is all published. However, if you can let the unresolved elements sit for a while until the rest is published, then this would be a fine summer reading choice.