off the shelf old books reviewed anew
Shall We Tell The President by Jeffrey Archer, publisher Coronet 1983.
Shall we tell the President that this book is drivel?
Don't get me wrong.
It's fun drivel.
Jeffrey Archer's edgy political predictions circa 1977 when he originally wrote it, are a hoot.
Nigeria invades South Africa. France and Italy go communist. Teddy Kennedy is elected President of America.
The version of the book on my shelves is from 1983 before the author updated some of his more entertainingly edgy predictions and removed Teddy Kennedy altogether.
So this version is the orginal and the best.
It's kind of a procedural, focussing in part on the minutiae of law enforcement cum secret agent methodologies.
I guess Freddie Forsyth novels have given me a higher expectation level for book bound police and secret agent professionalism.
Archer's hero secret agent Marc encounters an assassin disguised as a Greek Orthodox priest leaving a hospital which he has just turned into a charnel house assassinating everything that moves, and Marc forgets until near the end of the book that he ever saw him.
This is the sort of plotting up with which Enid Blyton would not put.
The characterisation of Marc is also consistently annoying.
You will positively root for the assassin.
The book sold in spades back in the dawn of time.
Among the blurbs quoted inside the cover, is this gem from Vogue magazine: "Here is terror, outrageous and top notch."
Cosmopolitan magazine says the book is: "Authentic, literate and scary."
I suppose different things scare different people.
Bear in mind that these two magazines played a seminal role over the past fifty years in persuading Western womanhood to endorse abortion, contraception, easy divorce, and promiscuity culture.
And they find Jeffrey Archer scary.
Bloody hell.
I mean he is scary but not in the way they mean.
This is how the world will end.
Not with a bang but a titter.
Anyway.
I still like this book.
You'll groan at what Jeffrey Archer thinks are police procedures.
You'll squirm at what he thinks is engaging likeability in his hero.
You'll throw up at the love scenes.
But, oh there must be a but, I read the thing to the gloriously trite finish.
Shall we tell the President that this book is drivel?
Don't get me wrong.
It's fun drivel.
Jeffrey Archer's edgy political predictions circa 1977 when he originally wrote it, are a hoot.
Nigeria invades South Africa. France and Italy go communist. Teddy Kennedy is elected President of America.
The version of the book on my shelves is from 1983 before the author updated some of his more entertainingly edgy predictions and removed Teddy Kennedy altogether.
So this version is the orginal and the best.
It's kind of a procedural, focussing in part on the minutiae of law enforcement cum secret agent methodologies.
I guess Freddie Forsyth novels have given me a higher expectation level for book bound police and secret agent professionalism.
Archer's hero secret agent Marc encounters an assassin disguised as a Greek Orthodox priest leaving a hospital which he has just turned into a charnel house assassinating everything that moves, and Marc forgets until near the end of the book that he ever saw him.
This is the sort of plotting up with which Enid Blyton would not put.
The characterisation of Marc is also consistently annoying.
You will positively root for the assassin.
The book sold in spades back in the dawn of time.
Among the blurbs quoted inside the cover, is this gem from Vogue magazine: "Here is terror, outrageous and top notch."
Cosmopolitan magazine says the book is: "Authentic, literate and scary."
I suppose different things scare different people.
Bear in mind that these two magazines played a seminal role over the past fifty years in persuading Western womanhood to endorse abortion, contraception, easy divorce, and promiscuity culture.
And they find Jeffrey Archer scary.
Bloody hell.
I mean he is scary but not in the way they mean.
This is how the world will end.
Not with a bang but a titter.
Anyway.
I still like this book.
You'll groan at what Jeffrey Archer thinks are police procedures.
You'll squirm at what he thinks is engaging likeability in his hero.
You'll throw up at the love scenes.
But, oh there must be a but, I read the thing to the gloriously trite finish.
posted by heelers | 9:52 PM
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