A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer
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Book Reviews of A Prisoner of Birth
Book Review: great charactars&great story
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow. What a book. This is my first book by Archer and def not my last. As of now Pisoner of Birth is in my top 5 books. I recommend it to anyone who loves a great book.Book Review: Edge-of-your-seat thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
I was pleasantly surprised. One of those books that I couldn't put down. I even put it in the cookbook holder while I was washing dishes.Book Review: Book
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is an excellent read, find it difficult to put down, as always Jeffrey Archer is a compelling author.Book Review: A 'captivating' read from Archer
Summary: 4 Stars
OK, it's true that 'Prisoner of Birth' depends on a rather old literary device('Our falsely-accused hero switches identites with his double'), and readers who are more literal-minded/inclined to nitpick may have trouble swallowing absolutely everything. For everyone else, whose 'suspension of disbelief' capabilities are at full strength, this will be a really entertaining read! Archer plays to his strength as a courtroom thriller specialist, and adds more than a little of his autobiographical experience. Those who(unlike me) have read his 'Prison Diaries' will likely enjoy comparing the real and fictional versions of Belmarsh. Even if you aren't too familiar with Archer's background,you'll still appreciate his attention to detail in both the prison and the courtroom. Unlike many other authors (on both sides of 'the pond'), Archer is good at including plenty of detail, AND actually making it relevant to the plot, and easy to read (After plodding through Karen Robards' much shorter, but infinitely shallower 'Obsession', in my last review, it was refreshing to read an 'intelligent adult' novel for a change!) It also helps that Archer tells us more about characters, and less about their home or office furnishings, a particular sticking point for P.D. James, and some other British authors of 'police procedurals'. This is a good departure from the traditional 'crime drama', in that the police play a much smaller(though still important) role, and the spotlight is on the legal and penal systems instead.
Archer's characters are, for the most part, fascinating, and unlike some of the lower reviews, I didn't really feel that he failed to develop any of them. If anything, he may have overdeveloped some characters/subplots while putting others aside for lengthy stretches(particularly the real villains); I agree that a bit more introspection from Danny(as 'himself', rather than as Nick) would have been nice, and feel a bit disappointed that he and Beth are kind of glossed over at times to get everything else in. After more than 600 pages, I actually felt like I could have read a couple hundred more, just because I didn't want to 'let go' of the characters just yet!
The 'Musketeers' are all suitably melodramatic, self-centered creeps, without being cartoonish...OK, with the possible exception of Lawrence Davenport, but the payoff is worth it where he's concerned!
Archer, understandably, is also particularly skilled at the 'financial thriller', and he certainly doesn't disappoint those who enjoy the intrigue of banking, auction houses, and shady transactions! Some of his descriptions and attention to detail in these sections wander off toward long-windedness, but he manages to tie it all together, and make it sound far more compeelling than a lesser author could have(again, PD James would have been too busy rhapsodizing on the finish of the wood paneling in the banker's wall...while Karen Robards wouldn't even make the effort to tell a compelling story, and would have used the office for a gratuitous 'sex' scene, with the heroine 'accidentally' leaving an incriminating shoe behind!;-D)
While the 'financial dealings' are crucial to the plot, the twists, turns, and changes of pace amid all the jumping back and forth among the various lawyers and bankers, and Danny/Nick's individual dealings with his/their enemies, sometimes overshadows the courtroom drama. I might have given the book five stars, but I find that the Hugo Moncrieff subplot is just a slight letdown compared to the rest of the story; good, just not as compelling as finding out how things will turn out for Danny.
All in all, though, this is an excellent novel by Archer, ranking ahead of the last of his books that I read, 'False Impression.'
Book Review: Prisoner of of a Lazy Editor
Summary: 4 Stars
THE SETUP
Garage mechanic Danny Cartwright asks Elisabeth Wilson to marry him. While celebrating in a pub, a group of upper class men insult Elizabeth and a fight results, in which Elisabeth's brother and Danny's best friend, Bernie is killed. Incredibly, Danny is accused of the murder of Bernie, in part on the theory that killed so that Danny would inherit Bernard's father's business. That's the setup, but it is just the beginning of the first "book", of a series of short "books".
CUDOS
Many popular authors would have published these as a series of novels, each consisting of sufficient mindless filler to achieve the necessary page count. Instead, Archer has taken the "Law and Order" approach, producing well-paced clean rich interconnected stories which entertain the mind like the best Swiss chocolate pleases the taste buds.
COMMENTS
As the title suggests, a few chapters into the novel, I feared that it would degenerated into one of those dismal "English class-resentment rants". Class is a theme, but with a twist. In prison, Danny, a low-class, illiterate, "East-Ender" and upper class Nick Moncrief are cellmates. Nick teaches Danny basic civilized manners and how to read. The two are so similar physically that, when Nick is murdered, Danny succeeds in taking his place, becoming Sir Nicholas Moncrief-- the British equivalent of a Horatio Alger story--and just as unlikely. Caveat, many "Horatio Alger" stories are true.
Actually most Americans could benefit from reading more "English class-resentment rants". In our relatively class-mobile society, it is inconceivable to most Americans that a society of a homogenous ethnicity could be so fractured. The phenomenon shines perspective on what we misperceive as racial conflicts. For example, the Japanese and Chinese immigrated to the U.S. as a wretchedly poor and despised underclass, but refused to remain so, and now outshine Euro-Americans--jolly good show! When the Irish immigrated to the U.S., they voluntarily remained an resentful underclass for nearly a century, until one of their number achieved the Presidency. Let us pray that example is repeated.
CAVEATS
"Prisoner of Birth" is a bit predictable. Predicable is not a negative attribute of novels--indeed, readers are rewarded by predictable novels, albeit the reward is proportional to the challenge. Archer sets the bar a bit low. Ppredictability can become a liability, as it does in this novel, when the participants (the characters themselves) are too stupid to see the blatantly obvious. Conversely, a twist (an unpredictable event) can add excitement to a novel, but can become a liability (as it does in the only significant twist in this novel) when the author has mislead the reader, in which case the reader can feel betrayed. Note to authors: let your characters mislead the reader, don't do it yourself (as the "anonymous omniscient narrator". There is a HUGE difference between, "Spencer noticed that the scar had faded" and "The scar had faded over the years").
VERDICT
There are many other serious inconsistences, implausibilities, loose ends, and other hairballs. Insulting your reader's intelligence is the easiest way to loose stars. Is editing a completely abandoned profession? Give it 7 stars for the great novel it would have been with a little editing, and deduct 3 for the serious (but easily correctable) shortcomings.