Jeffrey Archer

Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare was born in 1940. He attended Brasenose College at Oxford. In the early sixties he represented Great Britain internationally in the 100 meters.

In 1969 he entered the House of Commons after winning a by-election in Louth. He published his first moved in 1974. In 1974, Archer was a also casualty of a fraudulent investment scheme involving Aquablast, a Canadian company. The debacle resulted in the loss of Archer's first fortune and faced with likely bankruptcy, he stood down as an MP.

He had a rising and promising political career for a while, and became Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in 1985. However, in 1986 he was ousted due to a scandal.

In 1992 he was created a Life Peer, and became Sir Jeffrey Archer. He is married and has two children.

He was convicted of perjury and sentenced to prison for perverting the course of justice in his 1987 trial in 2001.

Here is a link to Jeffrey Archer's official web site. For more information about his lifestyle, see this article in Guardian. Here's a Daily Mail article about Archer's comeback. Also, Jeffrey Archer has his own blog on the net!

Bibliography

Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (1974).

Harvey Metcalfe, a self-made American millionaire, finalizes an elaborate scam in which he cheats four strangers out of a million dollars. They all thought they would be rich, but the next day they discover that they are penniless. However, they decide to work together to get the one million dollars back from Harvey Metcalfe, using whatever means necessary.

Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less is fun, it is full of plots, and a great read. However, the writing style is a little mechanical and simple, and not as good as in Archer's later books. Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less was televised in 1990 by the BBC.

Shall We Tell the President? (1978)

When Archer first wrote Shall We Tell the President in 1977, the President in the book was a man (Edward Kennedy). Later Archer up-dated the book by substituting Florentyna Kane, from The Prodigal Daughter, into the role as the American President.

Revolving around a plot to assassinate the President, Shall We Tell the President details the FBI's mad dashes around Washington to ensure that the deed is not done, and that the President never finds out that she is a target.

You don't need to have read the other two books in the series (Kane & Abel and The Prodigal Daughter) for this to be an excellent read - but as they are brilliant too, so just go for it. You will not be disappointed.

Kane and Abel (1980).

Kane and Abel is the story of two men, one Polish, an illegitimate son of a gypsy, the other rich and privileged from a wealthy Boston banking family. Abel Rosnovski survives countless setbacks, emigrates to the US and builds a thriving hotel chain. William Kane inherits a powerful bank and makes it even more successful. Their paths cross only once, but the meeting causes them to become bitter enemies, each determined to destroy the other.

Kane and Abel is a real page turner, very exciting and full of interesting twists and turns. A clever book! In our opinion, Kane and Abel is one of the best of Archer's books!

A Quiver Full of Arrows (1980).

A Quiver Full of Arrows is an impressive collection of short stories, really a full Quiver.

The book consists of twelve assorted arrows (short stories) into the quiver.. Each arrow is sharp and leaves a meaningful impact on the reader.

The Chinese Statue is a story that features a Sir Alexander, a British Diplomat, who has a priceless statue of Emperor Kung. It is towards the end that we understand the statue is not worth anything, but despite that, it is still priceless. How? Read on!

One-night stand is hilarious, and so is The Luncheon . Overall, all the stories bring out different elements of human nature. They are well written and very entertaining!

Three of of the stories have been dramatised for the Anglia TV series Tales of the Unexpected. A Quiver of Arrows is a great collection of short stories, well worth your time!

The Prodigal Daughter (1982).

Although The Prodigal Daughter falls a shade short of the greatness of its predecessor Kane and Abel, this is still an outstanding novel.

Florentyna Rosnovski is a formidable and unforgettable character. She endears herself to readers as a young girl through her relationship with her governess Miss Tredgold and her adventures from elementary school through college. Even the expected meeting with Richard Kane takes on new dimensions as they marry despite the deep rejection by both fathers. The Prodigal Daughter is another great read from Archer!

First Among Equals (1984).

First Among Equals is a tale of four gentlemen aspiring to become the Prime Minister of Great Britain: Fraser, Gould, Kerslake and Seymour. They enter the House of Commons in the 1960s, each aspiring to win the highest office and to reach 10 Downing Street. But only one man can do it.

Archer, the master storyteller, narrates in detail the lives of each men - the ups and downs each face - and winds it up with the final battle.

The suspense is gripping and the man who becomes the Prime Minister is revealed only in the very last paragraph of the novel.

First Among Equals has been filmed as a TV-miniseries by the BBC.

A Matter of Honour (1986).

In 1966 a disgraced British colonel bequeaths a mysterious letter to his only son. "An unemployed ex-military man inherits a sealed letter in his father's will. It is an old letter that his father, at the insistence of his wife, had never opened. His father's letter to him instructed him that he was only to open the letter if a matter of family honour came up. This excellent book takes the reader over many countries in Europe as foreign agents try to take his inheritance from him. The item in question is worth far more than monetary value."

When Adam Scott opens the yellowing envelope, he sets in motion a deadly chain of events that threatens to shake the foundations of the free world. Within days he is running for his life throughout Europe, pursued not only by the KGB, but by the CIA and his own countrymen as well.

A Matter of Honour is another page turner!

A Twist in the Tale (1988).

(Short stories) The plots in the stories in A Twist in the Tale are rich and intriguing: A wine-tasting with a bizarre difference, a game of sex with a sexy stranger, a violent row in a golf clubhouse bar, a rivalry founded on eating cornflakes, murder of a mistress right after the departure of her other lover.

The openings and plots are cunningly constructed, move at the speed of light, and are all captivating. Another great set of short stories by Archer!

The New York Times: 'Jeffrey Archer plays a subtle cat-and-mouse game with the reader, a collection of twelve short stories that end, more often than not, with collective whiskers twitching in surprise'. A Twist in the Tale shows what a brillian writer of short stories Jeffrey Archer is!

As the Crow Flies (1991).

The title, As the Crow Flies, is an idiom meaning "by the most direct way; along a straight line between two places". This is a suitable description of the tale of Charlie Trumper.

Charlie Trumpers story is based on a rags-to-riches theme. A young barrow boy from the Whitechapel area of London's East End, Charlie masters the fine craft of becoming the best fruit and vegetable man in all of the East End. This is a talent he hones at his grandfather's side and one that stays with him for life and gives him his greatest thrill.

The reader watches Charlie grow from eight-year-old urchin to World War I soldier and chairman of his own London department store. Along the way both triumph and tragedy are his companions, but it is his bitter and hate-filled feud with the Trentham family that will leave you aghast and shocked, but always mesmerized and turning the pages. As the Crow Flies is a wonderful, very entertaining read.

Honour Among Thieves (1993).

By using $100 million as bait and spinning a deadly web of corruption, forgery, and terror, Saddam Hussein seeks to embarrass the U.S. with the ultimate revenge: to steal a treasured historical document and then destroy it before the world's media-on July 4, 1994. This is what it's about in Honour Among Thieves.

As the countdown to Independence Day begins, two agents stand in the way of his nearly flawless plan: Scott Bradley, a rising star in the CIA who is desperate to prove his patriotism, and Hannah Kopec, the stunning Mossad operative. Their unrelenting quest to prevent what would undoubtedly be the most humiliating day in U.S. history takes them across four continents and climaxes in a dramatic, triple-twist ending.

Twelve Red Herrings (1994).

Twelve Red Herrings is collection of 12 short fiction stories. They are written in the familiar Archer style - straightforward yet clever with word play and surprise endings.

’Red Herring’ is a term used to signify that something irrelevant that is dragged into a matter only to divert/confuse the subject at hand. This tactics is used by Archer in each of the stories. Mostly - I have to admit - with sufficient cunning to outsmart the current reviewer.

The Fourth Estate(1998).

The Fourth Estate is a tale of two competing newspaper barons, Richard Armstrong and Keith Townsend, based on the lives of Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell. One was the son of an illiterate peasant in Europe. The other was raised in a mansion on the far side of the world. They differed in all respects apart from the most important one: Both were gamblers, and were prepared to lose everything while fighting for the largest newspaper empire of the world.

The Eleventh Commandment (1998).

Connor Fitzgerald works for the CIA. Nobody knows of his double life, so when days before he's due to retire he goes on a last business trip which goes wrong, his family is inadvertently thrown into questioning what he really does for a living.

Actually, Connor is being sent on a bogus mission, set up by the director of the CIA, presumably with the permission of the White House. The job ploy to eliminate Connor, who has, in the Director's view, become a threat to her job.

The Elevent Commandment is another tale with a lot of twist, and clearly with some references to the goings on of the real world. Well worth an intensive weekend of reading!

To Cut a Long Story Short (2000).

"Archer established himself long ago as a master of this format, with four superb collections to his credit and now a fifth, TO CUT A LONG STORY SHORT. The ease with which he spins a tale is reminiscent of Bradbury, Hitchcock, and Serling. Any one of them could pack more irony, suspense, and pure entertainment into 20 or 30 pages than other authors can manage in 300. Archer accomplishes that same feat, and with such a remarkable variety in the selections that you keep wishing there were twice as many."

- Ann Bruns, www.bookreporter.com

Sons of Fortune (2003).

Jeffrey Archer has the "touch". He is an extraordinary storyteller. Sons of Fortune is his first book after having been the guest of Her Majesty the Queen for some time. Fortunately, both for us and him, the touch is still intact. The plot is as rich as before, and the story-telling spellbinding.

Sons of Fortune is about two twins that were separated at birth, and that does not know one another at all. The both grow up in the same area, but live totally different lifes. Both excel in what they do, but in quite different fields. They even both fall in love with the same women, but, again, without meeting.

However, finally destiny brings them together. They meet, ironically, when one of them takes on the challenge of defending the other against an accusation for a murder he did not committ. They gradually detect the truth, but finding the truth, it turns out, has some quite extraordinary consequences.

Another great book from Lord Archer, that will probably make it extremely difficult to stop reading before the book ends. Plan for a weekend of reading when you buy Sons of Fortune!

Cat O'Nine Tales (2006).

While incarcerated for two years in five different prisons, Jeffrey Archer picked up several ideas for short stories. They range from a tale of 'The Man Who Robbed His Own Post Office', to the story of a company chairman who tried to poison his wife while on a trip to St Petersburg - both with unexpected consequences. In another, 'Maestro', an Italian restaurateur ends up in jail, unable to explain to the tax man how he can own a yacht, a Ferrari and a home in Florence, while only declaring a profit of £70,000 a year.

Cat O'Nine Tales is another great collection of short stories by Archer!

False Impression (2006).

It's September 10, 2001, and Lady Victoria Wentworth is sitting in spacious Wentworth Hall considering the sad state of family fortunes when a female intruder slips in, slashes her throat and cuts off her ear.

The next day in New York, art expert Anna Petrescu heads to her job as art wrangler for wealthy magnate Bryce Fenston of Fenston Finance. The pair's offices are in the Twin Towers, and when disaster strikes, each sees the tragedy as an opportunity to manipulate a transaction scheduled to transfer ownership of a legendary Van Gogh painting, Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear, from the Wentworth estate to the larcenous Fenston.