Best-selling author and former politician Lord Jeffrey Archer dies at the age of 86

He was a born storyteller who managed to captivate his readers with entertaining family dramas, exciting intrigues and few historical details. His books were often set in the political milieu or the financial world; the world bestseller “Cain and Abel” alone sold more than 50 million copies. Lord Jeffrey Archer died on Monday at the age of 86 - one day before the publication of his last work "Adam and Eve". His life itself seems like something straight out of a novel.

“His life story was one full of ambition, power, money and sexual intrigue, with more unexpected twists and turns than any of his novels,” says the obituary in the British newspaper The Telegraph. The Times writes: "One could almost say that Jeffrey Archer's life was far stranger than fiction, but most of his fateful experiences have been reworked in his best-selling novels."

Meeting fans the day before his death

Archer died “suddenly and peacefully at home,” his publisher said in a statement quoted by British media. On Sunday, the former MP met hundreds of fans and signed books for them at the Leicester Square Theater in central London. The author was a prominent but also polarizing personality, particularly in his native Great Britain.

At 34, Archer, who leaves behind his wife and two grown sons, had written his first novel, which was published in 17 countries within a year. The debut “All that glitters is not gold” sold almost 30 million copies and gave him a spectacular career. The bestseller “Cain and Abel” is about two men who were both born on the same day – one has everything, the other nothing. The sequel tells the rise of “Abel’s daughter” to become the first female president of the United States.

The father is a convicted fraudster

Archer's childhood in Somerset could have come from one of his novels: his mother was the local paper's first reporter and had already given up daughter Wendy and son Jeffrey for adoption. She also named her next son Jeffrey - the future Lord Jeffrey Archer. He was born on April 15, 1940 and she spoiled him very much. His father was a convicted fraudster and retired bigamist who conned many well-known New Yorkers during World War I.

Archer became one of the youngest Conservative MPs in the British Parliament in 1969 - a year after his wedding. But just five years later, the politician was on the verge of bankruptcy and had to give up his mandate because he had invested his entire savings in a fraudulent Canadian cleaning company. His wife - a scientist - then supported the family with two small children.

To make money, Archer wrote, became a bestseller and became a millionaire. In 1985 he became deputy leader of the Conservative Party and was one of Margaret Thatcher's favorites. But a year later he had to resign: The Daily Star newspaper reported that he had paid a prostitute 2,000 British pounds. Archer filed a lawsuit - successfully. The judge awarded him a record half a million pounds in compensation after his wife stood up for him in the witness box. A few years later he was knighted and stood as Lord Mayor of London for the Conservatives.

Despite imprisonment: wife never thought about divorce

But the past caught up with him again, in the middle of the election campaign: The scandal paper “News of the World” dug up a witness who Archer is said to have persuaded to lie for him in the court case. Just hours before the curtain rose on the premiere of his stage play “The Accused,” in which Archer ironically played a murderer, he committed to appear in court. He was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice; he was sentenced to several years in prison in 2001.

He served two of them and immediately turned his experiences into money: with his three-part prison diary “A Prison Diary”. This ended his political career - but not his marriage, even though he had offered his wife a divorce while in prison. “I just won’t give up,” Dame Mary Archer told the Telegraph some time ago. Did she ever think about it? "Divorce never, murder - often."

To write in Mallorca

They lived in a penthouse on the banks of the Thames with a view of the London Parliament, they spent their weekends in a village in Cambridge and Archer retreated to Mallorca to write. He got up there at half past five in the morning, wrote in four two-hour blocks throughout the day - and always by hand.

At just under 80 years old, he began a new series, the “Warwick Saga,” about a patrolman who does everything he can to become police chief and defies intrigues, scammers and love secrets along the way. «I don't think there is such a thing as luck. Bloody hard work is what you need,” the author explained his recipe for success to the Indian television station “News 18”. He needed 16 drafts just for the book about a Russian child prodigy, “Dream of Life” (2018). “I wish there was a shortcut, but there isn’t.”