To Cut a Long Story Short

In one of the few stories that does not involve people conning one another, "The Grass is Greener", the moral of the story appears to be that the head of an international bank experiences more pain and personal turmoil than Bill the beggar who sits on the street outside. In "A Change of Heart", a racist white South African devotes himself to doing good for the black community after receiving a black man's heart following a near-fatal car accident. Archer's fans will undoubtedly enjoy this collection but other readers may find its relish for duplicity rather dubious or at best find its sentimental morality rather cloying. --Guy Smit

Amazon.co.uk Review
Fraud, deceit, deception, lying, bankruptcy, infidelity: these are the recurrent themes that concern Jeffrey Archer in his fourth collection of short stories, To Cut a Long Story Short. Of the 14 stories gathered here, nine are asterisked as being "based on true incidents" but the whole collection is remarkable for the extent to which Archer's own chequered career finds echoes in his fiction. In "Crime Pays", Kenny Merchant--"that wasn't his real name, but then, little was real about Kenny" finds an ingenious loophole in the Data Protection Act to make a financial killing, whilst in "The Letter" a wife enjoys reading a kinky love letter from her lover (a well-known novelist) in front of her husband. Her lover recalls making love in "the loo at the Caprice" and fantasises about "being tied to a four-poster bed, with you standing over me in a police sergeant's uniform".

In one of the few stories that does not involve people conning one another, "The Grass is Greener", the moral of the story appears to be that the head of an international bank experiences more pain and personal turmoil than Bill the beggar who sits on the street outside. In A Change of Heart, a racist white South African devotes himself to doing good for the black community after receiving a black man's heart following a near-fatal car accident. Archer's fans will undoubtedly enjoy this collection but other readers may find its relish for duplicity rather dubious or at best find its sentimental morality rather cloying. --Guy Smit

From the very start you have a fine short story which took all of 30 seconds to read. How did he do that?

May we ask Jeffrey to keep rolling them out.


captivating stories   December 14, 2000
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

These fascinating stories are perfect reading on holidays, public transport et. al. I strongy recommend them.


Not what I expected   July 28, 2000
0 out of 2 found this review helpful

When I first picked up this book, I have benchmark my expectations against Archer's other short stories collection. How wrong I was. These stories are easy to read, however, I did not find the twists(if any at all) or ironies as intriguing as his previous works.


Super - Easy to read in segments - Book   July 16, 2000
Goldenballs (Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh United Kingdom)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

This was a great holiday book.

You can read one story when you have time, and not have to remember what happened in the past chapter.

Easy going but compelling stories.

Good buy.