Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffery Archer

Four men invest their life savings in a North Sea oil company. The next day they realise they've been conned. With nothing to lose, the four men - an Oxford don, a Harley Street doctor, an art dealer and a lord - get together to hatch a plan, con the conman and get back every penny they lost.

Review

Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less has a great idea behind it. Four men, each with their own talents and connections, work together to con the man who tricked them out of thousands of dollars. It's a shame that Archer couldn't pull it off. The schemes the men come up with are clever - although the conman is conveniently gullible at times - but too often Archer misses opportunities to ratchet up the tension so that I never felt involved in the action. There is also little in the way of character development. Each of the characters he has created have potential; the young lord struggling under the expectations of his family, the society doctor bored with his wealthy, needy patients, the French art dealer navigating his way through society, and the brilliant but naive American scholar. However, like the plot, Archer misses opportunity after opportunity. His characters lacked personality, back story and, for the most part, emotions and so I never really understood their motivations (beyond retrieving their lost money) or grasp what was at stake if they didn't succeed. 

This may be a little harsh. Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less was a diverting read on a rainy day and I would have forgiven Archer if the ending hadn't been so bloody disappointing. It was like he just ran out of ideas and gave up in the final few chapters, writing a conclusion so lazy, contrived and frankly implausible that I felt cheated. In summary, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less is a great idea poorly executed. 

Read On

Maybe I'll give Archer another chance with Kane and Abel.

One Shot by Lee Child

Six shots, five people dead and a small Indiana city is thrown into a state of terror. Within hours, the cops have solved it. It's a slam-dunk case but there's one problem. Even in the face of overwhelming forensic evidence, the accused says they've got the wrong man. And he wants Jack Reacher to prove it. Jack Reacher, an ex-military cop and drifter catches the news on the television and immediately heads for Indiana. What he finds is the accused in a coma and a case that's a little bit too perfect.

Review

One Shot is not great literature but that's not Lee Child's thing. What is Lee Child's thing are fast-paced, smart, and well written thrillers that may be implausible but are a lot of fun to read. The action starts slowly as Child sets everything up. Once the pieces are in place, the pace picks up, the plot thickens and a case that originally looked watertight starts to unravel. Jack Reacher too is a great character. In a genre full of alcoholic, divorced, world-weary detectives, he's a breath of fresh air. He rides into town on a Greyhound bus, analyses the hell out of everything, kicks everyone's ass and rides off into the sunset with a clear conscience. Some of the stuff he does is frankly implausible but he does make enough mistakes to prevent him appearing omniscient. 

In summary, not a great work of literature but a good thriller. The fast pace and smart plot makes this a real page-turner and One Shot will keep you hooked until the last page.

Read On

One Shot is the ninth book featuring Jack Reacher and the tenth is The Hard Way. Other rollicking thrillers with kick-ass characters and implausible storylines include Ice Station by Matthew Reilly and Map of Bones by James Rollins.

Fatherland by Robert Harris

Hitler has won. It is 1964 and the Greater German Reich stretches from the Netherlands to the Ural Mountains. Xavier March, a cop and a good man despite his SS uniform, investigates the murder of an old man who was once a Nazi bureaucrat. What March uncovers is a conspiracy that reaches to the highest echelons of the German Reich, a truth that could topple governments, change history and get him killed.

Review

Robert Harris isn't the first author to imagine a world in which the Nazis won, and he won't be the last, but Fatherland is probably one of the best. Harris uses his lovely, sparse writing style to perfectly evoke the mood and the people of a fascist Germany. There's no long-winded and tedious back story to wade through, instead Harris hooks you in with comments and flashbacks which hint at but never fully reveal his divergent history. The same sparse description is used to bring his characters to life. Xavier March is an interesting and well written protagonist and more than just a world-weary detective; he's an honest man working for a criminal regime, a war veteran disillusioned by Nazi ideology and an independent thinker in a nation of followers.

The plot itself is gripping and the tension and paranoia ramps up as the full extent of the conspiracy is gradually unveiled. You can sense disaster coming, it's inevitable, and yet you can't stop reading. The ending is abrupt with not even an epilogue to tie up the many loose ends. I guess this untidy conclusion was intentional, perhaps reflecting that reality is untidy, perhaps leaving the reader wondering long after the book has been finished.

In summary, Fatherland is a well written and absorbing crime noir where the crime is solved but a grim evocation of life in a fascist state lingers long in the memory. Well worth the read.

Read On

I enjoyed Robert Harris' Enigma so I may go on to read another of his books, such as The Ghost, or An Officer and a Spy. The what-ifs of alternative histories intrigue me, so I may crack open Dominion by C.J. Sansom, a spy thriller based in Nazi Britain.

The General's Daughter by Nelson Demille

Captain Ann Campbell, the daughter of General 'Fighting Joe' Campbell, and poster girl for the US Army is found naked, bound and murdered on the firing range at Fort Hadley. Paul Brenner is one of the Army's elite undercover investigators and the man in charge of investigating the case alongside rape specialist Cynthia Sunhill. In a case that has the potential to be politically explosive as well as potentially career-ending, the duo uncover corruption as rank and sordid as Captain Campbell's secret personal life.

Review

I enjoyed this book and it kept me up long past my bedtime on a couple of nights. As with all of Demille's books, The General's Daughter is witty, tightly written and fast-paced with just enough information revealed in each chapter to keep you guessing up to the last few pages. Plot twists are handled deftly to keep the suspense high and the large cast of characters make sure there are more than enough motives to keep the identity of the murderer obscured until the last minute. At the time the book was written (1992) women had just started to serve alongside men and Demille uses this book to explore sexual tensions in the army and army morality as well as wider themes such as loyalty, revenge, and betrayal. 

However, the characters are largely cardboard cut-outs. Brenner is a wise-cracking, middle-aged investigator who is good at his job but doesn't play by the rules while Sunhill is younger, smarter,and more idealistic. There is some witty banter between the pair (and an entirely unnecessary romantic relationship) but they feel like an earlier and less developed versions of John Corey and Kate Mayfield, main characters in his later books. The exception, ironically, is the victim herself and I changed my mind about her several times through the book. 

In summary, this is a good book, but not one of Demille's best. The characters are a little two-dimensional and the romance contrived, but The General's Daughter provides an interesting insight into the treatment of women in the military at that time.

Read On

Up Country is another Demille book with Brenner as a protagonist but for me Plum Island, the first book featuring Detective John Corey, is the best of the lot.

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

Set six years after the events of Pride and Prejudice, Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett are happily married with two young children. However, their tranquil lives are thrown into disarray one wet and windy night when a carriage comes hurtling up the driveway. The door bursts open and Lydia, Elizabeth's younger spoiled brat of a sister, spills out, screaming that her husband, the charming but deadbeat George Wickham, has been murdered. Actually he hasn't, to the slight disappointment of Darcy for whom Wickham is a constant source of embarrassment. A search party finds Wickham in the woods, drunk and bloodied, beside the body of Captain Denny, and he babbles what sounds like a confession. But, even though he is a rogue and a serial seducer of young woman, is Wickham really a murderer? Even Darcy can't quite believe that of him.

Review:

I found it difficult to finish this book. The story didn't hold my attention and it was easy to put down, even in the middle of a chapter. To be honest, it was a dull read. I confess that I've not read any of Austen's works, relying instead on the BBC adaptations, but there was none of the witty dialogue or the wry observations so often attributed to Austen. The characters too were wooden and lacked life and personality. Elizabeth was written as an passive and dutiful wife concerned with propriety and keeping up appearances, seemingly weighed down by her responsibilities. What happened to the witty and sharp-tongued Elizabeth Bennett of Longbourn? Darcy is a little more animated but full of self-doubt and self-recrimination, constantly examining his conscience with regard to Wickham and even his own marriage. Although this insight into Darcy's inner thoughts are interesting, his constant whinging gets tiresome after a while.

Death Comes to Pemberley is disappointing on the mystery side as well. The story is tame by modern standards and there is no detective work to speak of as in those days there were no police and crimes were investigated by local magistrates. This may be historically accurate but makes for a less than exciting read. The solution is contrived and relies on the mystery solving itself at the inquest with the help of last minute revelations from cardboard characters written solely for that moment. The pace too was slow. I wasn't expecting a frantic pace - the story is set on the Georgian country estate after all - but the story plodded along.

In summary, don't bother. The glacial pace of the book, the stilted dialogue and the dullness of the characters made me lose all interest in finding out whodunnit and why.

Read On: 

I'll be steering clear of Austen sequels for a while - I feel that none can quite live up to the original. Maybe I'll finally get around to reading a Jane Austen novel or try to salvage PD James' reputation by reading one of her many crime books.