6/24/2023 0 Comments Jesus quiver of arrowsHe'll drop names and make too-casual mentions of fancy brands, institutions and corporations as a personal resume of aristocratic tastes and upper-crust associations, with heavy emphasis on Oxford and Eton. If you're a fan of Ocean's Eleven, or any story populated by scoundrels, thieves, gamblers and tricksters, Lord Jeffrey will delight you. Never mind what those macho Brazilian men are up to. Observe this fleet of black Mercedes that I've likened to a land-bound crocodile. Look over here, at the woman I've described as the White Queen with cottage loaf hair. Archer employs a unique image, usually a simile repeated for emphasis, as a hook that pulls you into each story. The writing style is clean, masculine and unapologetic. Lord Jeffrey makes sure to introduce you to people from all the right social circles, dah-ling. We meet captains of industry, bankers, military commanders, foreign diplomats, Empresses and Presidents. Over a dozen tidy tales, we are taken on a global tour from China to London, New York to Nigeria. The reader is flown graciously across continents in a show of cosmopolitan worldliness. Violence is always offscreen, a distant assassination, no direct hits. Sex is obliquely referred to as "making love" with a breast here and there, but is terribly perfunctory - Archer never lasts more than a paragraph or two - and there's certainly no talk of emotions. No shock and awe tactics are ever employed, just a soothing compendium of light surface description and blithe plot. They're full of wry surprises and parlour tricks. There's something deeply comforting about an Archer story. When wealth and luxury were marked by Rolls Royces, leather chairs and Cuban cigars rather than hybrid vehicles, recycled furniture and vegan meals. Written in 1980, these are vignettes of a simpler time, before email and cellular phones and Twitter and Facebook cluttered up our lives. The man has an unhealthy preoccupation with rank, status, and money (as this collection of short stories will attest). Thank goodness Jeffrey Archer got a Baronetcy in 1992. P.P.P.P.SThat last story of yours? Old Love, I think it was? That was my favourite. Can I have an authentic autographed anthology of short stories from you, please? I'm just cranky at how disappointed I am with your novels after reading through the creativity and finesse of your anthologies. P.P.S You can write anything that you want. P.S If you didn't get that I liked your short stories but not your novels, please read through letter again and ruminate deeper. Do not bother writing any more long novels as that will waste time that could be spent on creating short stories of beauty. I've already read them all and there's no more anthologies to read. To conclude, please write more short stories. I always found the twists in your long novels intolerable but the ones in your short stories, you guessed it, were witty and fantabulous. Your long novels are boring but your short stories are interesting. Your long novels suck but your short stories are amazing.
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