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Book Review: ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’ by Jeffrey Archer

Lord Jeffrey Archer spins yet another page-turner with Be Careful What You Wish For, but vintage Archer is a thing of the past

Back in November last year, we reviewed Jeffrey Archer’s Best Kept Secret, the third in his Clifton Chronicles. To recap, it revolved around the two central families, the Barringtons and the Cliftons. The momentum of the narrative swung between Giles Barrington, now Member of Parliament, and his electoral adventures to defend his seat in the House of Commons — making a lifelong enemy in the process — and Harry, Giles’ rum-oured half-brother, who is curiously married to Emma, Giles’ sister, and his own rumoured half-sister.

I meant to catch up on the previous books in the series, but never got down to it, and wasn’t motivated enough, now that Jeffrey Archer is a shadow of his former writing self. There was no need to either, because the new fourth book in the series takes off seamlessly from where the last one left off. The climax involved a car accident involving the young boys Sebastian Clifton — Harry and Emma’s son — and his best friend Bruno, and the readers didn’t know which boy had perished.

Be Careful What You Wish For obviously opens around the circumstances of the “accident”, and the fate of the boys. Harry Clifton, already a successful author, gains new popularity in the United States, and his wife Emma is busy trying to swing the fate — and thus its fortunes — of the Barrington Shipping Company, which is hanging tenuously, in the wake of increasing passenger air travel post WWII. Her brother and Member of Parliament Giles Barrington’s former enemy, the egregious Major Alex Fisher has mysteriously landed up on the board of the shipping company, backed by 
the vengeful Don Martinez, hell bent on destroying the Barrington-Cliftons. Family drama is also tossed in, when Harry and Emma’s daughter Jessica is faced with a bitter truth about herself — on the eve of her wedding.

Archer weaves in some suspenseful moments of power play, business 
acumen and dirty dealings in various parts of the narrative. And once the setting moves from England to Ireland, even terrorism makes an appearance with the IRA. A new protagonist enters the field in the form of Cedric Hardcastle, chairman of Farthings bank, who makes an important discovery while trying to seal lucrative business contracts.

The plot and narration are definitely a step above the previous book, which I only read half-heartedly, but maybe that was because the characters were still new to me. There’s everything you want in an effortless thriller read — murder, backstabbing, betrayal, romance, revenge, terrorist plots, corporate takeovers, family drama, twists and turns. But somehow, you still get the feeling this is not exactly what you wished for from Archer.

Word is that Archer plans to extend the series to seven books, which might work fine for the Clifton Chronicles. But overall, his status as one of the world’s greatest pulp fiction thriller writers — prolific in both novels and short stories — is shaky today. It’s obvious Lord Archer is no longer capable, or willing, of spinning out epics in his glory days in the 70s and 80s — the riveting Kane and Abel series, First Among Equals — and even later, with the likes of The Fourth Estate in the 90s.

The Clifton Chronicles don’t stand a chance compared to the Kane and Abel series in terms of memorable people, dramatically changing circumstances, and characters’ abilities to survive and win in the most desperate and unlikely situations. Archer readers have the names Richard Kane, Abel Rosnovski and Florentyna etched in their brains. The Barrington-Cliftons? I highly doubt they will last in public fiction memory a decade later.

Maybe it’s not time for Lord Archer to take a bow yet, but we surely miss the master tale spinner he used to be.

marypaulose@khaleejtimes.com