Gail has been telling me great things about this Jeffrey Archer book for years. She read it as a kid. When iBooks first came out they had it on sale for $2.99, so I bought it. This was like a year ago and I finally got around to reading it. In fact, I think this is the first book I’ve read on the iPhone, even on the Kindle app for iPhone. It was quite exciting and I enjoyed the experience immensely.
It can’t mask the fact that somewhere along the line G and I have taken different reading paths. When we first met we read the same books all of the time. I think that remained so all the way up to about five years ago when I really got focused on my reading (about the same time I started this website). Now it’s a rarity, but this reminded me how fun it is to talk about a book with someone you love.
This was a fun romp through British high finance and aristocracy. It’s a drama about revenge without any murder or malice really. I was refreshed. It has some mystery and some tense moments, along with a surprise near the ending that I didn’t predict, and it went very quickly.
I never really felt like I got to know the characters very well. I’m so used to character-driven fiction that I feel a little empty when I read a more story-driven book. Archer clinically walks through all of the characters in the story in a very impartial tone for the first few chapters of the book. Once the plot thickens he humanizes the group somewhat, but their individual personalities were kind of lost on me.
It had an inventive ending though and I may be getting down to more Jeffrey Archer in the future if Gail will join me.