5 reviews for Not A Penny More Not A Penny Less
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Not A Penny More Not A Penny Less
by Jeffery Archer
Description:
The conned: an Oxford don, a revered society physician, a chic French art dealer, and a charming English lord. They have one thing in common. Overnight, each novice investor lost his life’s fortune to one man. The con: Harvey Metcalfe!! A brilliant, self made guru of deceit. A very dangerous individual. And now, a hunted man. With nothing left to lose four strangers are about to come together each expert in their own field. Their plan: find Harvey, shadow him, trap him, and penny for penny, destroy him. From the luxurious casinos of Monte Carlo to the high stakes windows at Ascot to the bustling streets of Wall Street to fashionable London galleries, their own ingenious game has begun. It’s called revenge and they were taught by a master
About The Author
Archer wrote his first book, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, in the autumn of 1974, as a means of avoiding bankruptcy. The book was picked up by the literary agent Deborah Owen and published first in the US, then eventually in Britain in the autumn of 1976. A BBC Television adaptation of the book was broadcast in 1990, and a radio adaptation was aired on BBC Radio 4 in the early 1980s.
Kane and Abel (1979) proved to be his best-selling work, reaching number one on The New York Times bestsellers list. Like most of his early work it was edited by Richard Cohen, the Olympic fencing gold-medallist. It was made into a television mini-series by CBS in 1985, starring Peter Strauss and Sam Neill. The following year, Granada TV screened a ten-part adaptation of another Archer bestseller, First Among Equals, which told the story of four men and their quest to become Prime Minister. In the U.S. edition of the novel, the character of Andrew Fraser was eliminated, reducing the number of protagonists to three.
As well as novels and short stories, Archer has also written three stage plays. The first, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, opened in 1987 and ran at the Queen’s Theatre in London’s West End for over a year. However, Archer’s next play, Exclusive, was not well received by critics, and closed after a few weeks. His final play, The Accused, opened at the Theatre Royal, Windsor on 26 September 2000, before transferring to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in the West End in December.
Archer has stated that he spends considerable time writing and re-writing each book. He goes abroad to write the first draft, working in blocks of two hours at a time, then writes anything up to seventeen drafts in total. In 1988 author Kathleen Burnett accused Archer of plagiarising a story she’d written and including it in his short-story collection, A Twist in the Tale. Archer denied he had plagiarised the story, claiming he’d simply been inspired by the idea.
It has been suggested that Archer’s books undergo an extensive editing process prior to publication. Whilst Archer’s books are commercially successful, critics have been generally unfavourable towards his writing. However, journalist Hugo Barnacle, writing for The Independent about The Fourth Estate (1996), thought the novel, while demonstrating that “the editors don’t seem to have done any work”, was “not wholly unsatisfactory”.
Since 2010, Archer has written the first draft of each new book at his luxury villa in Majorca, called “Writer’s Block”.
In 2011, Archer published the first of seven books in The Clifton Chronicles, which follow the life of Harry Clifton from his birth in 1920, through to the finale in 2020. The first novel in the series, Only Time Will Tell, tells the story of Harry from 1920 through to 1940, and was published in the UK on 12 May 2011. The sixth instalment, Cometh the Hour, was published on 25 February 2016. The final novel in the series, This Was a Man, was published on 3 November 2016.
Archer’s next novel has been provisionally titled Heads You Win, and will be published in 2017, along with another volume of short stories.
Skryf Review
“Excellent Reading”
Krushali
I come by my love of mysteries and thrillers naturally, as both my mother and grandmother are addicts of such books. This book was among their highly recommended reads. I thoroughly enjoyed it the first time around a few years ago, and it was just as much fun this time.The story features a Bernie Madoff-type villain named Harvey Metcalfe who, despite all his previously ill-gotten millions, takes the opportunity to con a few naive investors in a stock market scam. Among his latest victims is an American math genius teaching at Oxford. Realizing he’s been had, he recruits three other victims (a handsome doctor, a French gallery owner, and a playboy lord of the realm) to steal back what Harvey took from them — not a penny more, not a penny less.The cons of the con man are exciting, clever, and delightfully poetic. Since the book was originally published in 1976, there are no cell phones or computer hacking or electronic spying. Instead, expect walkie-talkies, disguises, and tailing. The action is exciting, while comic, along the lines of “Ocean’s 11.” There’s no violence, but there is some romance (though it too is a product of its time).
Kaushal
If a plot can be so good as to hold your attention up to the last page then its definitely worth reading. This book falls in to that category.You must be feeling I am glorifying it a little too much 🙂 When have finished reading it ,you will be saying the same. All the characters are well researched and there is hardly any opportunity to find flaws in the technicalities. Language is simple thus making it a easy read.Give it a try and tell me what you felt about this bookÂ
Jasmine
I have come to admire Jeffrey Archer and his works. The attention to detail he gives to his characters is something I love. They seem real and NOT dipped in frivolity. Every detail seems to serve a purpose to propel the story. This was his very first novel and it was an enjoyable read at that. The story made me smile at the extremes some will go to in order to get what they want/need. However improbable this story may have been, I liked that it exacted revenge in a gentlemanly way. It was smart and not ‘guns and violence’. Don’t get me wrong, I like guns and violence to some degree, but this was not the book for that
Kahaan
In Not A Penny More, Not A Penny less, Jeffery Archer depicts the story of four men who get cheated out of their life savings through a false company run by a rich man out for himself . All four men are brilliant in their own special fields of work and make a pact to get their money back, Not A Penny More, Not A Penny less. Each person has to make their own plan and together they will practice it to perfection enact it, when the time is right. The person who cheated them is not an easy man to bring down, though he does not know it…the four men who he cheated will be back to reclaim their hard-earned money, and the.The story is rather slow to start but it becomes intense after the mid-point of the book with an action set pace. Archer does an excellent job with truly explaining the characters of the book along with their professions and how they think. Some of the descriptions were so specific that one would assume that he personally met that character. It was very well written and had two amazing plot twists near the end. Readers should be prepared for anything or else be sucked into the insane world of plot twists. Some of the less..redeeming traits of the book was how some explanations of places that were used as settings were rather meager. Sometimes the reader may have to break away from the text and imagine the scene themselves. I derived the theme: ‘Never Give Up’ from the text as the protagonists were at the rock bottom and still did not mope or have self pity once in the story.In truth this book is a 4/5 stars Archer does an excellent job on making the reader fell what he wants them to feel. I would recommend the book to anyone who has even the smallest amounts of knowledge about the stock market and an appetite for an adventure. Jeffery Archer has done it again with an excellent book which the public should love.