Cat o' nine tales and other stories

Jeffrey Archer, 1940-

Book - 2007

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FICTION/Archer, Jeffrey
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1st Floor FICTION/Archer, Jeffrey Withdrawn
Subjects
Published
New York : St. Martin's Press 2007.
Language
English
Main Author
Jeffrey Archer, 1940- (-)
Edition
1st U.S. ed
Item Description
"First published in Great Britain by Macmillan, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd."--T.p. verso.
Physical Description
ix, 254 p. : ill. ; 25 cm
ISBN
9780312362645
  • The man who robbed his own post office
  • Maestro
  • Don't drink the water
  • It can't be October already
  • The red king
  • The wisdom of Solomon
  • Know what I mean?
  • Charity begins at home
  • The alibi
  • A Greek tragedy
  • The Commissioner
  • In the eye of the beholder.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Bestseller Archer (Kane & Abel) put his time in prison to fine literary use, as evidenced by the 12 stellar entries in his fifth story collection, nine of which are based on tales he heard from fellow inmates while incarcerated. Three others he composed after his release. Highlights include "Maestro," in which a restaurant owner finds a way to launder money so that the tax man can't collect; "The Man Who Robbed His Own Post Office," about a hardworking couple who steal from their own business rather than see it all taken from them; and "It Can't Be October Already," in which a man uses the system to beat the system. The economy and precision of Archer's prose never fails to delight. The criminal doesn't always get away with his crime and justice doesn't always prevail, but the reader wins with each and every story. Drawings by the inimitable Ronald Searle are a bonus. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

(See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/06) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Archer (False Impression, 2006, etc.) presents a dozen stranger-than-fiction stories. All 12 of these stories, the author insists, are based on actual incidents, nine of them anecdotes he picked up during his two years as a guest of Her Majesty. Many of the tales involve scams. A thief manipulates two acquisitive brothers to run up the price of a fabled chess piece. A middle-class couple plunders the post office in which they've invested when its status is downgraded. A lorry driver agrees to so many smuggling schemes that they become his life's work. An accountant and an events arranger conspire to upgrade her salary and launder the proceeds at the roulette table, and a Florentine restaurateur takes a more literal approach to laundering his income. Even criminals aiming higher, or lower, are equally ingenious and unsuccessful. A man poisons his inconvenient wife during a visit to St. Petersburg by hiding the "Don't Drink the Water" signs. A prisoner breaks out of a minimum-security jail to kill his girlfriend and her current lover. A retiring Bombay police commissioner gives an incorrigible swindler a second chance by hiring him as a file clerk. Any of these stories would make a terrific anecdote in a crowded bar, but none of them is heartfelt or ingenious enough to stand on its own as an offering to strangers asked to invest serious time and money. The same goes for the items that didn't originate in prison dialogues: a Greek paterfamilias accidentally killed at a wedding he's graced with his presence; a second marriage that reveals exactly why an old friend was drawn to his wealthy behemoth of a wife; and a judge's stratagem for dealing with a wife determined to bankrupt the husband she's divorcing. Could have benefited from more fictionalizing. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.