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.