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Book Summary and Reviews of Mightier Than the Sword by Jeffrey Archer

Mightier Than the Sword by Jeffrey Archer

Mightier Than the Sword

The Clifton Chronicles #5

by Jeffrey Archer

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  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Feb 2015, 400 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Mightier than the Sword opens with an IRA bomb exploding during the MV Buckingham's maiden voyage across the Atlantic - but how many passengers lose their lives?

When Harry Clifton visits his publisher in New York, he learns that he has been elected as the new president of English PEN, and immediately launches a campaign for the release of a fellow author, Anatoly Babakov, who's imprisoned in Siberia. Babakov's crime? Writing a book called Uncle Joe, a devastating insight into what it was like to work for Stalin. So determined is Harry to see Babakov released and the book published, that he puts his own life in danger.

His wife Emma, chairman of Barrington Shipping, is facing the repercussions of the IRA attack on the Buckingham. Some board members feel she should resign, and Lady Virginia Fenwick will stop at nothing to cause Emma's downfall.

Sir Giles Barrington is now a minister of the Crown, and looks set for even higher office, until an official trip to Berlin does not end as a diplomatic success. Once again, Giles's political career is thrown off balance by none other than his old adversary, Major Alex Fisher, who once again stands against him at the election. But who wins this time?

In London, Harry and Emma's son, Sebastian, is quickly making a name for himself at Farthing's Bank in London, and has proposed to the beautiful young American, Samantha. But the despicable Adrian Sloane, a man interested only in his own advancement and the ruin of Sebastian, will stop at nothing to remove his rival.

Jeffrey Archer's compelling Clifton Chronicles continue in this, his most accomplished novel to date. With all the trademark twists and turns that have made him one of the world's most popular authors, the spellbinding story of the Clifton and the Barrington families continues.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Expect once more unto the breach: The conclusion's a turbo-charged cliffhanger that'll have fans screaming Arrrcherr!" - Kirkus

"...as always, [Archer] conducts his multiple plots and vivid characters with consummate skills." - Barnes and Noble

This information about Mightier Than the Sword was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Marina

Waste of time. Childish story
To begin with, the book isn't worth a minute I have spent reading it. I am surprised at the raving reviews it has been getting.

Firstly, I did not get, why read the book. Beautiful language? No. Clever though-provoking mess? No and No! The only idea that I got was that one a a family of Super Heroes fighting the evil. The author could have left it to the cartoonists.

Secondly, if the main goal of the author was to reveal the evil nature of Stalin and Russia, failed again. It made me laugh immensely tovresd about "straw beds" in Siberian prisons. No matter howvicious the system was or how tough the system fell upon the political convicts, there were never such medieval conditions.

Also, about Harry's trial in Leningrad. Come on, dear author! Do you really believe that should a foreign citizen being charged with whatever serious crime he has committed I the USSR, there wouldn't be international law regulations involved? The first thing to happen would be the involvement of the ministry of foreign affairs and the embassy. In the book, a foreign citizen was just kidnapped and no one could be bothered to ask any questions. OK, the first person to worry and seek for assistance of the embassy has to be Emma, Harry's wife, who was preoccupied with her own problems. If Harry had not been released, of course, she would have started to ask questions and get the authorities involved. However, Harry was threatened with 12 years of imprisonment in Siberia, which, he should have realized, was not likely to happen. I mean, should he had been imprisoned, there would have been foreign affairs lawyers involved!
More to that! It was Brezhnev's time. Of course, KGB was not that absolutely lawless! Plus, Stalin's personality had already lost its power over Soviet people. So, stop inventing!

So, total rubbish, sorry.

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Author Information

Jeffrey Archer Author Biography

Jeffrey Archer was born in London and brought up in Somerset. He was educated at Wellington School, and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was President of the University Athletics Club, and went on to run the 100 yards in 9.6 seconds for Great Britain in 1966.

After leaving Oxford he was elected to the Greater London Council, and three years later at the age of 29, he became Member of Parliament for Louth. After five years in the Commons and a promising political career ahead of him, he invested heavily in a Canadian company called Aquablast, on the advice of the Bank of Boston. The company went into liquidation, and three directors were later sent to jail for fraud. Left with debts of £427,727, and on the brink of bankruptcy, he resigned from the House of Commons.

Aged 34, ...

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