Word: archers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Jeffrey Archer is a writer of beach books (Kane & Abel; First Among Equals) who was once the youngest member of the House of Commons, and is now deputy chairman of Britain's Conservative Party. As writerly credentials go, these are well up on the customary "shipped out on a tramp steamer" and "parachuted into occupied France...
...trouble is with the author's photo on the reverse side of his new book, a shrewd and amiable thriller called A Matter of Honor. Archer is shown in full color, posing authoritatively in a blue pinstripe power suit, and carries an open volume, perhaps one of his previous tomes. His smile is that of a man who would not be surprised if a headwaiter applauded...
This will not do. Horowitz wears tails, Roger Clemens a Red Sox uniform, and thriller writers, according to tradition, are caparisoned in creased outerwear, lurking beside bridge abutments in the fog. Archer is radiant and fogproof. With a lesser talent, this miscalculation could have been fatal. After all, when one of Eric Ambler's down-at-the-heels protagonists makes a dodgy border crossing, the tension is palpable. Readers know that if the policeman in the greasy uniform were a shade more intelligent, he would realize that the hero's accent is bogus, his passport fake. An author who sees...
...Archer's hero is Adam Scott, a former British army captain who goes on the run and has trouble crossing borders. The pages turn amusingly, and secret agents from several nations chase the protagonist with vigor and invention. But all this hare-and-hounding is the result of a mixup, and one suspects quite early on that when that nice Captain Scott is given a hearing, it will be the agents who are in trouble...
...classic shamus prefers a snub-nosed .38, made in the U.S.A. He is invariably single (Philip Marlowe was a bachelor until Chandler's last, unfinished novel; Lew Archer lives alone, as does Spenser, although Spenser keeps company with Susan Silverman, a compassionate shrink). He is also short of cash and careless about his clothing. He is a two-fisted drinker (even though James Crumley's Milo Milodragovitch goes for peppermint schnapps) and sometimes drops his guard long enough to reveal a flash of erudition (Marlowe has atrocious taste in socks but can quote Browning). Touches of class cater...