Rating: 
Summary: Barely 2 stars
Review: I have read all the other reviews which I agree with, but what REALLY annoyed me was the constant use of the word "as", instead of "since", "because"
or even a different sentence construction. Did he have a computer program do the actual writing ? I checked how often Archer used subject, verb, comma and "as". It was almost every other page - it was so glaring I had trouble reading, and THAT'S disregarding the idiot plot. I now wonder why I even gave it 2 stars.
Rating:
Summary: How dows this affect women?
Review: How is it that Archer can be deemed, "one of the top ten storytellers in the world?" Through out this book there are young women wanting to get pregnant and married all before graduating college. One character shows her love for her boyfriend by telling him that she'll give up her education to support him in his career. What message is this sending?? Does Archer have a daughter? Is this what he wishes for her? Authors today need to better understand social responsibility.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to believe this is actually written by Archer
Review: I'm not going to waste a lot of words repeating what everyone else has already said, and to be honest, I only managed to read the first 200 pages before tossing this book aside. I found the characters indistinguishable from each other. In fact, I kept having to flip back to the beginning of the book to remember the differences between Nat and Fletcher, Tom and Jimmy.Actually, the characters are so uniformly flat, it seems even the author himself couldn't keep them separated. On page 70 of the soft-cover version, Archer has Jimmy replying to Nat (he meant to write "Tom" but obviously the editor of this book had fallen asleep by this point too). Archer goes back to using Tom after the first error -- but it just compounded my frustration with the boring, similar characters. Enough said. Avoid.
Rating: 
Summary: Why Hartford?
Review: I've been a long-time fan of Archer and read his works many times. But I'm not sure if I will ever read this book again. If you are first-time readers, then maybe it's worth it. Oh...Where to begin? First of all, why does it have to be a politically sleepy town Hartford as the location of this political story? I'm a long time resident of Connecticut, and I'm glad this big-shot novelist put our state on the map. But his story just doesn't match the Hartford we've known ... Maybe it fits better like Chicago or Los Angeles or Boston... All exciting things tend to pass our capital city which is in between New York and Boston. Where is the glamorous Hartford Mr. Archer describe? High crime rate, urban poverty, deteriorating economic condition...things all familiar to Hartford are not parts of the backgrounds. And if Mr. Archer comes to Hartford, he would realize it is basically a city of minorities, esp. Hispanics and blacks...but where are they in his story? Well-to-do whites living in the center of Hartford is a history. Then again, this is not a documentary... so I would understand he changed the city landscape to meet his needs. But a more troubling thing is best summarized as this. "Too much of a good thing." I still can't figure out what exactly is the center of this story. The fate of the separated twins? Political ambitions? A murder mystery? Reading this is like having to eat Chinese, Italian, American, and French before getting to a desert. Now I need Pepcid AC.
Rating:
Summary: Not-quite-quintessential Archer
Review: Not quite quintessential Archer, but still good if a little implausible (then again, many good stories are that way). I like the suspenseful ending, where you should have paid attention to details of habit to discover who wins, but there is another clue besides the coin toss - who stands where.
Rating: 
Summary: exciting start to finish
Review: I just finished listening to the unabridged version of Sons of Fortune and loved it. I haven't read any of his since Kane and Abel many years ago but will definitely read or listen to more of his in the future. I was just sorry the twins true identity was'nt revealed until the final chapters of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Find the coin toss
Review: I agree with the disappointment of the factual errors in the book. However, for those that skimmed pages you missed the clue to the winner of the coin toss at the end. What frustrates me more than reading the book to its end is that I have to go back through for one more painful journey to find the coin toss reference that happened within those pages. It was there, and I remember reading it- that "he" always guessed "heads". Where was it? at the beginning of a debate? a game? darn!
I invested far too much time getting to the end to leave it "unfinished".
Rating:
Summary: Compressing time
Review: (I am reviewing the British paperback. I hope St. Martin's press did some editing and rewriting for the U.S. market. ) I generally enjoy Archer novels and, at first, I enjoyed "Sons of Fortune" because it engaged me with the story but I ended up annoyed by its inconsistencies and chronological impossibilities. Having lived in America through the period and having been raised on one of the towns where the action takes place I'm amazed that Archer would release a book that is so ignorant of the ground it covers. His mistakes include even the location of towns. The whole book is literary slight of hand, which maybe what the reviewer from "The Mail on Sunday" meant when he wrote (quoted on the back cover of the British edition) "There's a touch of the magician about Jeffrey Archer." Or perhaps it's just bad editing At the end of Chapter 14 one of the protagonist twins separated at birth, Nat, is honored by President Nixon. At the beginning of chapter 15 it becomes President Johnson. Nat is in the army because of the draft lottery. But the lottery started during the Nixon administration. He was drafted in 1967, in the Johnson years. Between the 1992 primary and general elections Fletcher, who is running for governor against Nat, has enough time to defend his rival in a murder trial (the alleged murder took place the evening before the primary), survive a car crash in which he almost dies, and then run a full campaign with three debates. I know we have long campaigns in the U.S. but not there is not THAT much time between the primary and the general. In the final scene Archer has transposed the British election ballot to America. In the US we have general elections in which several races are listed on one ballot. In the final vote count, where there should have been races for President, Congressman, State Senate, State House and Governor on one ballot, Archer's "ballot papers" contain only the race for Governor. They must to convey the drama that Archer needs. But that's not the way it is and in the end I wanted to throw the book through the window. Fortunately, despite its almost 600 pages, it didn't have enough weight to break the glass.
Rating:
Summary: coudn't stop reading
Review: This was my first Jeffry Archer book but i am searching for all others i can get my hands on. One of the best books ever. I read alot and am so happy to have found a new author
Rating: 
Summary: An entertaining read from a great storyteller
Review: I felt compelled to write a review for this after seeing it get canned by almost every other reviewer on this site. Sons of Fortune is an entertaining read which moves quickly from scene to scene. This type of book is Archer's forte, and whilst not being close to Kane and Abel, the all-time Archer classic, it is interesting enough to keep most readers attention. Many here have complained about it being too absurd. I don't read novels to be shown lessons on how life can be lived. I like to read about the impossible. And anyway, nothing could be more fictional than Not a Penny More... , which is my second favourite Archer, if only for its ingenuity. Yes, Archer does resort to tools used in his previous novels, which probably provides the only real negative for die hard fans of his such as myself. However, in none of his 'rivalry' novels has he used the trick of having the rivals help one another out, which provides the real twist to this novel. Jeffrey Archer has never pretended to be a brilliant writer, but he is one hell of a storyteller, and Sons of Fortune only confirms that.
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