6 reviews for A Twist In The Tale
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A Twist In The Tale
by Jeffery Archer
Description:
No one can weave a web of suspense, deliver a jolt of surprise, or teach a lesson in living like bestselling author Jeffrey Archer. From Africa to the Middle East, and from London to Beijing, Archer takes us to places we’ve never seen and introduces us to people we’ll never forget. Meet the philandering husband who thinks he’s committed the perfect murder; the self-assured chess champion who plays a beautiful woman for stakes far higher than cash; and the finance minister who needs to crack the secrets of a Swiss bank. Jeffrey Archer’s collection of twelve spellbinding stories will sweep you on a journey of thwarted ambition, undying passion, and unswerving honor that you’ll never forget.
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”
Angaan
Jeffrey Archer is frequently inspired to write short stories based on actual events. He is kind enough to * those titles in the table of contents. Since most of the books I read are E-Books, my curiosity prompts me to easily Google the situations, the tales and the characters in order to learn –as Paul Harvey famously put it — “The rest of the story”.Archer is a master of ‘the twist’ ending…without exception, my response after having read each of .his short stories is “I never saw THAT coming!”. In fact, more often than not I feel compelled to immediately re-read them to see if I can learn what I may have missed!Naturally, it is difficult to rate a collection. Some are more engaging than others –it depends on the readers preferences. But all are extremely well done. I won’t rate it a 5, because I reserve that for my all-time favorite books. But I unreservedly give it a strong 4. I look forward to reading more of Jeffrey Archer’s works.
Vishvesh
I read this book about 4 years ago, and I wasn’t very impressed by a story or two that i read then. Now, luckily I decided to give it another chance. It is an example of good story telling ability of Archer. He is a master. I loved some stories, the plot and especially the awesome endings. These are just the kind of stuff I look for in a short story book. I loved the stories and they kept me amused during the long hours of boredom that I normally experience while traveling to and from my university.
Shrawan
Jeffery Archer is a master story teller. The book, A Twist in the Tale, indeed confirms this. Of the twelve stories in the collection, my favorite is “Clean Sweep Ignatius”, which tells the tale of the Nigerian finance minister who wanted to test the avowed code of privacy of a Swiss bank before stashing nearly $5 million in cash he embezzled from his country in the bank.
Anupama
Actually, A Twist in the Tale is the most exciting of Archer’s collection of short stories. The stories simply grip you from the start and you wouldn’t guess it right how they would end no matter how hard you try to. They get particularly interesting towards the end. The plots are all too unpredictable and the writing is fast-paced, smooth and rich.. It’s simply vintage Archer and with other collections like The Usurper: and Other Stories, Runaway.I am in the phase of my life where I am enjoying short fiction the most.
aashna
Two stories stand out – the last, and most poignant, a detailed letter written by a loving son to his rabbi father, describing how he first met and fell in love with his Gentile wife, which manages to catalogue the important landmarks of his life; and a story about a female picking up a man at a pub that is nothing like it seems. The others seem a little forced, especially the Golf Club one, and even the first in the book, about the ‘perfect murder’. By the end I’d lost interest in whether he could get away with it or not, and had guessed the ending, which ruined everything, that being one of Archer’s key skills, and the point of these short stories, as we can gather from the title.