That's the title the good folks at The New York Times came up with for my latest piece for them, and it's not a bad title, either, since the book I'm reviewing, Ken Follett's massive Fall of Giants, deals precisely with the domino-landslide quality of the end of Europe's crowned heads, post-WWI. Ken's a pro; if you like that kind of thing–blockbuster non-literary storytelling in serviceable but uninspiring prose–no one does it better.

He makes a good living at it, too. I'd be happy with half the salary of his Web designer.