Crime Fiction Alphabet - Archer, Jeffrey

I came across the Crime Fiction Alphabet on Clarissa Draper’s blog and thought it was a pretty cool idea. I write mostly romantic suspense, so there's usually a crime somewhere in my stories. The idea behind the Crime Fiction Alphabet is to write something related to crime fiction that’s based around the letter of the week. The post should be up by the end of each week. I thought I could do this because it’s one letter per week. See the rules for the Alphabet in Crime Fiction here. This Meme is run by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise. 

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My choice this week is Jeffrey Archer, who is one of my favourite writers. His writing career started with a determination to repay debts owed by a company in which he had invested. He sat down and wrote a book, which sold extremely well. Since then, he has gone on to publish more than a dozen novels and five collections of short stories. His books have sold more than 250 million copies.  I’ve read all but one of his short story collections. 

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Archer’s writing style is deceptively simple. He uses straightforward sentences and weaves them into stories that keep the reader absorbed to the end. The crimes he writes about are usually committed in such a way that I’m left admiring the ingenuity of the criminal.  Also, they’re not usually of the blood and gore variety. One of the things that is fascinating about Archer’s writing is that the endings (think short story) almost always come as a surprise.

The last collections I read were Twelve Red Herrings and Cat o’ Nine Tales.