Is Jeffrey Archer The Tiger Woods Of Bestselling Writers (He Had It But Now It's Gone)?

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

In the long, long years ago of my early youth. When I started to work and my political views were not as left wing as they are now .....well.....I have a confession I need to make.

I liked Jeffrey Archer (as a writer he stresses).

Yes there I said it. I've come out of the bookshelf to say this. Only in terms of entertainment value you understand I enjoyed his books. From Not A Penny Not A Penny Less to First Amongst Equals his books passed through my eyes voraciously.

Jeffrey Archer had seemingly the gift of making you want to turn the page. It didn't matter that his style was not perfect, he could, as any of the blurb on his bookcovers will say "tell a story".

In fact I'll go further, judged solely as an entertainment First Amongst Equals is one of the best books I've ever read.

But...(you knew that this was coming)

When I read A Matter Of Honour there seemed to be something missing. That urge to turn the page was gone. I've read another whose title I forgot but was something about The American Constitution. That too was dull, uninteresting. He seemed to have lost his touch. He was like any other writer now.

And so now after all these years I've read Tell Tale, and....he has become exactly like Tiger Woods, an impressive past hiding an unimpressive present.

These are a collection of short stories. Some are "twist in the tale", others are "rags to riches (not necessarily in wealth - in a career sense as well)". All of them are however pedestrianly written. If his name wasn't on the cover I'm sure it would not have been published.

The twist in the tale stories were either predictable or you just shrugged your shoulders in your mind and thought "there we are then". As for the rag to riches tales. He's done them before....and better.

I noticed that a number of stories were "inspired by real events". The word "inspired" gives Archer a lot of wriggle room. In Who Killed The Mayor? inspired by real events a killer (easily guessable) is revealed. I'm sure he doesn't know re the "real events" who that person really is. I don't really care aside from View of Auvers-sur-Oise which had an ending which didn't so much beggar belief as was selling the Big Issue on the street. Yet it too is inspired by real events

Perhaps what the book needs is to follow the example of Fanta Orange. There's orange in it but when you look at the bottle it's just 4% (!). So perhaps the reader should be given a percentage as to how much of each story is real.

There is also one story which has three separate endings because Archer couldn't be bothered to decide which one to pick. Listen Jeff...this is a book...not a DVD!!!

Jeffrey Archer then. He had it. He lost it. And he still hasn't found it.

Until the next time.