International bestselling author Jeffrey Archer has spent the last five years gathering spellbinding stories from around the globe. These fifteen brand-new tales showcase Archer’s talent for capturing an unforgettable moment in time, whether tragic, comic, or outrageous.
In India, Jamwal and Nisha fall in love while waiting for a traffic light to turn green on the streets of Delhi.
From Germany comes “A Good Eye,” the tale of a priceless oil painting that has remained in the same family for over two hundred years, until...
To the Channel Islands and “Members Only,” where a golf ball falls out of a Christmas cracker, and a young man’s life will never be the same...
To Italy and “No Room at the Inn,” where a young man who is trying to book a room at a hotel ends up in bed with the receptionist, unaware that she...
To England, where, in “High Heels,” a woman has to explain to her husband why a pair of designer shoes couldn’t have gone up in flames...
Some of these stories will make you laugh while others will bring you to tears but, once again, every one of them will demand that you keep turning the page until you finally discover what happens to this remarkable cast of characters.
From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Archer assembles 15 more of the clever stories for which he is known. They are split between tales of trickery, as with "Stuck on You," where an eager young man is played by a diamond thief, and decidedly sentimental stories, such as "Members Only," about a man who wants nothing more than to join a private country club. Archer marks with an asterisk stories that are based on true incidents (10 in this collection), and whether it is the weight of credibility these stories' genesis lends or if the author works better with some starting material, the entirely imagined stories are also the weakest. "Politically Correct" never gets out of the shallows in its attempt to be provocative, and "Better the Devil You Know," with its evil executive making a deal with the devil (aka Mr. De Ath), is silly even for this author, who usually writes with a winningly light touch. Still, Archer's writing exudes a certain charm and is mostly satisfying. His trademark twists--sometimes a surprise to the reader, sometimes not--and genial tone will endear these mostly cozy stories to his many fans.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Like Cat O’ Nine Tales (2007), Archer‘s latest collection of short fiction features stories based (sometimes rather loosely, we suspect) on true incidents or people. Of the 15 stories, 10, we’re told, are based on “known incidents,” which means, for example, that something similar to the very clever method of stealing jewelry described in “Stuck on You” might actually have been tried. Or that someone like Benny, the too-clever-for-his-own-good prison stoolie, might really have sentenced himself to a life of looking over his shoulder. Aside from the fact that they’re marked with an asterisk, it’s hard to tell the true(-ish) stories from the outright fictional ones: in all of them, Archer creates engaging characters and puts them into situations that range from tragic to comic to, well . . . a little strange. Once again we have ample proof that Archer is as proficient with short stories as he is with novels. --David Pitt
