Jeffrey Archer (http://www.jeffreyarcher.co.uk/site/) has had a colourful career including a spell in prison, 2001-2003, for being economical with the truth. Selling fiction has been his strong point. He is quoted in the Independent of 21 March 2014 (p.15) as saying ‘If you’re asking me if I’d rather sell 270 million books or have the Booker Prize, then I’d rather sell 270 million books’. We are, it is fair to say, at the antipodes from literary fiction with an offering from Jeffrey in our hands. His latest publication, Be Careful What You Wish For, is the fourth book in the Clifton Chronicles series. The summary is as follows. When Ross Buchanan is forced to resign as chairman of the Barrington Shipping Company, Emma Clifton wants to take his place, but Don Pedro Martinez plans to install his puppet, the egregious Major Alex Fisher, so he can destroy the Barrington family firm once and for all. The talented Jessica Clifton, Harry and Emma’s adopted daughter, wins a scholarship to the Slade Academy of Art and falls in love with a fellow student, Clive Bingham, who asks her to marry him. Both families are delighted and preparations for the nuptials are well under way, when Charlotte Bingham, Jessica’s future mother-in-law, has a visit from an old friend, Lady Virginia Fenwick, who drops her particular brand of poison into the wedding chalice. But then, without warning, a man no one had ever heard of takes his place on the board of Barringtons and causes an upheaval that none of them could have anticipated. Cedric Hardcastle, a bluff Yorkshire banker, quickly decides who he should support, Emma Clifton or Don Pedro Martinez, and the story takes yet another twist. In one last throw of the dice, Martinez sets up an audacious coup when the MV Buckingham sets sail on its maiden voyage to New York. If you were on the edge of your seat at the end of Best Kept Secret, then prepare for sleepless nights once you’ve turned the last page of Be Careful What You Wish For, when you will wonder how Harry, Emma and Giles can possibly survive. This is an epic tale of love, loss, ambition and betrayal. Almost as interesting as the author’s own life.
400 pages in Macmillan
ISBN 978-0230748255
Jeffrey Archer