Cat o'Nine Tales: And Other Stories

Jeffrey Archer, in this book and several similar collections before it, works in a literary form that is virtually extinct elsewhere: the non-genre, non-literary short story. He writes the kind of tale that filled the pages of now-extinct “slick” general-circulation magazines like The Saturday Evening Post at the middle of the last century: stories whose linear plots involve essentially ordinary characters in events that are extraordinary but not fantastic. They have beginnings, middles, and endings . . . the latter often, in the turn of-the-century style of H. H. “Saki” Munro and William Sidney “O. Henry” Porter, involve twists.

Cat O’ Nine tales differs slightly from its predecessors in that it has a theme: nine of the show more twelve stories are based on tales he heard while serving time in prison, and thus (to one degree or another) involve crime or the law. That constraint limits Archer’s range of subjects somewhat, and -- because the backbones of the plots come pre-made -- sometimes pushes him away from the kinds of tales where he’s most at home. Pathos (“It Can’t Be October Already”) and the absurd (“Don’t Drink the Water”) don’t suit his style nearly as well as complicated tales of mind games and deception (“The Wisdom of Solomon” and “The Red King”). It also creates, in several stories (particularly “The Man who Robbed His Own Post Office”), unexpected hurdles for American readers not familiar with the specifics of British culture on which they turn.

Archer’s literary craftsmanship asserts itself throughout the book, however, ensuring that the stories are never less than readable. The consistency of his work comes through as well, ensuring that readers who liked his previous collections, will probably like this one -- a bit more or less, perhaps, depending on their taste for genteel tales of crime and punishment. show less

12 short stories, mostly set in England, with a few out of there (India, Russia (although the characters in this one are English so not quite sure if it counts as an oversea one), Greece, Italy, etc). Most of the stories are based on real crimes which Archer had been told about while he was in jail.

Archer's stories (and novels) had never been popular for the big twists - there are some small ones but as a whole, it's the narrative and the story that matters, not the twists and the surprises. But even in this style, the twists pay off. Some of the stories are really entertaining, some are almost absurd ("Don't Drink The Water"), some seem to be exposing some strange things happening in Her Majesty's prisons ("The Alibi") (and when one of show more those stories is there, there is a short note at the end about what is happening to the inmate in question).

And through the whole collection, there had been one main line - crime does not pay off (probably with the exception of "The Red King" which was probably the funniest story from the lot).

Definitely not as strong as some of his novels but a pretty solid collection - 4 stars out of 5 for it. show less

This book contains 12 short stories by Lord Archer, nine of which were based on stories he gathered while serving time in prison (hence the title, Cat O'Nine Tales) while the remaining three were on completely random topics and seem a bit out of place in this collection.

As Archer's crimes were more of the white collar kind, his prison stories here are similarly light on bloody murders and largely deal with issues like cigarette smuggling, tax evasion, etc. The stories are reported as fictional, but the way Archer wrote himself in as a character on several occasions gave them more of a nonfiction feel. The appearance of a character named Patrick O'Flynn who was so very similar to the character Pat Quinn in Archer's admittedly show more semiautobiographical Clifton Chronicles also gave the feeling that Archer relied heavily on true sources.

Nevertheless, Archer cannot seem to resist the dramatic flair and ends each story with a "twist" of sorts. Let me reiterate, he ends every single story with some sort of "surprise" ending. This sort of trick started to fill old pretty soon as the reader begins expecting what sort of surprise would be in store, knowing that something out of the ordinary would inevitably happen.

However, these stories were by and large very engaging (although I found the last two stories in the book to be rather dull), and I ploughed through this book rather quickly. This is the kind of book I would recommend to someone who prefers a "cozy" mystery with a bit more of a literary flair.

On a side note, the audio book version had an excellent reader in Anton Lesser who really helped to bring each individual character to life. show less

Archer uses the prison theme through this collection of short stories, all of them based on fact. He has a real talent for story telling : simple, light-hearted and even mischievous, he draws the reader in. A fun, light read which convinces that crime does not pay.

An anthology of shorts stories mostly centered around criminal breaches of trust. It is quite easy to empathize with the motivation behind some of the wrongdoings, and might even give a less scrupulous person unsavory ideas. As with his other collections of short stories, there is always a little twist in the tale that makes it a fun read.

This collection of 12 short stories is solid, but not outstanding. None of them had a "wow!" ending and they were pretty easy to predict. Nine of the 12 are based on ideas Archer came up with during his two years in prison based on life stories from other inmates. Most are set in Europe.

Anton Lesser's narration is superb! I was slightly shocked at the last story, not because of the story, but because the characters' accents changed from one of the various European dialects to Indian. Lesser maintained the speech pattern convincingly and I was more impressed with that.

Not a bad collection, just not a noteworthy set.

Another impressive set of short stories, a couple really almost novellas.
Beautifully and cleverly narrated.
I really am hooked on Archer's short stories.

The list of stories
The Man who Robbed his own Post Office
Maestro
Don’t Drink the Water
It Can’t Be October Already
The Red King
The Wisdom of Solomon
Know What I Mean?
Charity Begins at Home
The Alibi
A Greek Tragedy
The Commissioner
In The Eye of the Beholder

They range from a tale of ‘The Man Who Robbed His Own Post Office’, to the story of a company chairman who tried to poison his wife while on a trip to St Petersburg – both with unexpected consequences. In another, ‘Maestro’, an Italian restaurateur ends up in jail, unable to explain to the tax man how he can own a show more yacht, a Ferrari and a home in Florence, while only declaring a profit of £70,000 a year.

‘The Red King’ is a tale about a con man who discovers that an English Lord requires one more chess piece to complete a set that would be worth a fortune. In another tale of deception, ‘The Commissioner’, a Bombay con artist ends up in the morgue, after he uses the police chief as bait in his latest scam. ‘The Alibi’ reveals how a convict manages to remove an old enemy while he’s locked up in jail, and then set up two prison officers as his alibi. In total contrast is the accountant, who, in ‘Charity Begins at Home’, realises he has achieved nothing in his life, and sets out to make a fortune before he retires.

And then there is Archer’s favourite, which he came across after leaving prison, ‘In the Eye of the Beholder’, where a handsome premier division footballer falls in love with a 20-stone woman … who just happens to be the ninth richest woman in Italy. - this extract from Archer's website. show less