To Cut a Long Story Short (Mass Market Paperback)

by Jeffrey Archer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
To Cut a Long Story Short reads like a series of modern fairy tales. In each story, Jeffrey Archer presents a moral problem, and a character finds himself tested in a dark hour. Evil manifests itself in the form of selfish relatives, corrupt cops, racist men. Good arrives in the form of unselfish minor characters who suddenly emerge as the real center of the story, or lost souls who come out the other side of corruption and renounce their old ways.

In "The Endgame" Cornelius Barrington decides to fake a bankruptcy. As one of the richest men in his small town, he hopes his sudden plunge into poverty will reveal the true character of his friends and relatives. He calls in debts, asks to borrow money from those he has lent to in the past, only to be turned away time and again.

After lunch Cornelius took a bus into town--a novel experience. It was some time before he located a bus stop, and then he discovered that the conductor didn't have change for a twenty pound note. His first call after he had been dropped off in the town centre was to the local estate agent, who didn't seem surprised to see him. Cornelius was delighted to find how quickly the rumour of his financial demise must be spreading.

"The Endgame" is a complex tale with a clear message. Not all the stories in To Cut a Long Story Short attempt such weightiness. "The Expert Witness" is a delightful parody of the legal system, a portrait of two pub mates--a lawyer and an expert witness--who often find themselves facing off in the courtroom, pretending not to know each other. Certain pieces (glimpses, vignettes) last a mere two pages, but whatever the length or weight of the story, throughout this collection Archer has a light touch, a quick wit, and a thorough understanding of the mechanics of suspense. --Emily White --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
This collection of sometimes intriguing, sometimes obvious stories is best suited to a series of short car trips rather than one long one: the listener tends to catch on fast to the O'Henry-esque endings, so the stories are less entertaining all at a gulp. And some might well have been cut shorter. Archer is least successful when the surprise endings turn solely on legal technicalities--as in "Crime Pays" and "Both Sides Against the Middle"--but a lot of fun when he interweaves legal issues with the relationships among the characters--as he does so well in "The Expert Witness" and "The End Game." These two particular stories also work well because, just when listeners think they've got the surprise ending, the plot thickens and twists again and then again. Some of the pieces are based on true incidents. In "A Change of Heart," for example, a South African bigot causes a car accident. The driver of the other car dies, and the bigot's life is saved by a heart transplant--the heart of the black man he killed in the accident. These are lighthearted stories, and Bill Wallace's reading is marvelous. He has a pleasing voice and crisp British accent that are entirely appropriate here, and he knows how to handle humor, irony and character differentiation without overdoing it. Simultaneous release with the HarperCollins hardcover (F