Cat O' Nine Tales by Jeffrey Archer.

             Cat O' Nine Tales by Jeffrey Archer.

"If you want to murder someone, don't do it in England. The odds are against you getting away with it. You've got a much better chance in Russia."

With sales of over 250 million and titles such as Kane and Abel to the recent Clifton Chronicles the Mail on Sunday referred to him as probably the best story teller of our age. He might not have a squeaky clean image, having spent 2 years in H.M. prisons, five to be exact but he did meet some interesting and exceptional criminals who fed his imagination with enough fuel to publish his Prison Diaries and this short story selection. It's Archer's fifth collection containing 12 stellar tales gleaned from the inmates whilst being incarcerated. All 12 stores are firmly rooted in fact although they have been embellished and most of the names changed.

The Cat O' Nine Tales/Tails is a variation of the flogging device used in prison. Records illustrate that it was probably removed in 1948 in Great Britain but continued to be used elsewhere in the world.

Archer is the only author ever to have been a number one bestseller in fiction(15 times), short stories(4 times) and non-fiction(The Prison Diaries).

The criminal doesn't always get away with his crime and justice doesn't always prevail.

The Man Who Robbed His Own Post Office depicts the lives and growing relationship between Chris and Sue from their schooldays to their National Service and the RAF, the birth of their daughter and their struggles to keep afloat with the changing economy that brought redundancies and job losses. They weren't scroungers, they didn't sponge off the state. They were hard-working people, honest and helpful. They became pillars of society and were held in high esteem.

They were both from happy, well-balanced backgrounds, a model family in fact, very different to the stereotypical criminal if one was allowed to stereotype without this label of political incorrectness being bandied around.

The Judge expected mitigating circumstances for stealing £250,000 and falsifying 4 passports, something along the lines of Mr Haskins being thrashed by a ruthless step-father, night after night, and Mrs Haskins having been raped by an evil uncle at an impressionable age.

Mr Justice Gray emphatically stated that they were not criminals so why were they arrested and sentenced to custodial terms if they were innocent? Intrigued? What was their crime?

They borrowed money for their first business, paid it off within the allotted time then borrowed more to buy a Post Office with A status, a considerable investment of £250,000 representing their savings, pension, future profits. Everything. The wheel of fortune favoured them, for a time until the headquarters informed them that they were re-evaluating their property portfolios which culminated in downgrading their current investment to a B status. They were advised that the law was not on their side if they made any attempt to sue the Post Office.

"We can never hope to earn back our original investment of two hundred and fifty thousand, even if we go on working for the rest of our lives."

Extremely depressing when you've worked hard all of your life towards your retirement knowing that you will be poor and struggling. It was Sue's idea to retire and recoup the money stolen by the Post Office but something went drastically wrong as you'll discover when you read this tale.

Don't Drink The Water is a tale with a demonic twist. Karl was from St Petersburg, an interesting man as long as you kept him at arm's length unless you wanted to toy with danger-he was a contract killer at the start of a 22 year sentence for disposing of a fellow countryman who was proving tiresome to one of the Mafia gangs back home. His speciality was cutting up his victims into small pieces and then putting these bits into an incinerator. His fee? £5,000. His story involves an English wealthy businessman called Richard Barnsley who had just completed a pipeline deal with the Minister for Energy, Anatol Chenkov. This had guaranteed the Minister $2 million a year. Who said money talks? The only currencies the Russians trade in are dollars and death. Chenkov had been a major in the KGB. No crossing swords with him. Not a man to double cross!

Richard is 53 and has been married to Maureen for over 20 years. The title refers to a sensitive situation with regard to sanitation in and around St Petersburg. The tap water is polluted, probably toxic and countless numbers of Russian citizens have succumbed to this Siberian disease. A mysterious letter addressed to Maureen from a solicitor troubles Dick and when she accompanies him to Russia he is advised that she might be entitled to £30 million's worth of his wealth. Over my dead body he might have said. A tricky situation with an enormous amount of money at stake. This tale has a Roald Dahl touch to it. Archer might have said an interesting twist in the tale!

I enjoyed It Can't Be October Already although it is a tragic indictment to lonely, homeless people like Patrick O'Flynn who gets himself arrested every October so that he can be watered and fed in prison during the long, cold winters and be released in spring. If he is sentenced to 3 months he demands serving 6 months. He has a wonderful sense of humour and displays friendliness and courtesy you wouldn't expect from a criminal.

“I wonder, Sergeant, if you could give me a wake-up call around seven, a cup of tea, Earl Grey preferably, and a copy of the Irish Times.”

Every time he meets a different person he repeats the story of when he tried to get a job on a building site in Liverpool. No one wants to hear it but Archer gets the full version. The question asked was : What is the difference between a joist and a girder?

Answer: Joyce wrote Ulysees, and Goethe wrote Faust. Irish humour?

An afterword indicates the tragic death of this lovable man from hypothermia whilst sleeping under the arches on Victoria Embankment. Tragic. It might change your mind about prison-inmates. If not, you'll find it an entertaining read.

Publisher: Pan     ISBN: 978-0-330-41883-6

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