Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, has written a review of A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer
Non-series
St. Martin's Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-312-37929-3 (0312379293)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-37929-2 (9780312379292)
Publication Date: March 2008
List Price: $27.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Danny Cartwright and Spencer Craig never should have met. One evening, Danny, an East End cockney who works as a garage mechanic, takes his fianceé up to the West End to celebrate their engagement. He crosses the path of Spencer Craig, a West End barrister posed to be the youngest Queen’s Counsel of his generation.
A few hours later Danny is arrested for murder and later is sentenced to twenty-two years in prison, thanks to irrefutable testimony from Spencer, the prosecution's main witness.
Danny spends the next few years in a high-security prison while Spencer Craig’s career as a lawyer goes straight up. All the while Danny plans to escape and wreak his revenge.
Review: A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer is a modern update of the classic tale of fate and fortune, redemption and revenge.
Danny Cartwright is an uneducated garage mechanic who is falsely accused of murder but found guilty and sentenced to twenty-two years in the highest security prison in the land. He has no thought of fortune or redemption, just revenge – revenge against the four prominent men who were involved in the killing of his best friend, and who were the prosecution’s prime witnesses at his trial. He figures he has twenty-two years to plan his perfect revenge. By a twist of fate, however, fortune becomes a part of Danny’s life when he is released as someone he befriended in prison, the heir to a vast estate. He now has the means to act on his revenge. But what of redemption?
From a general plot outline perspective, there is little difference between A Prisoner of Birth and The Count of Monte Cristo from which the novel is clearly derived. The author here, however, instills into his characters personalities that make them individuals and not merely copies of the original characters created by Dumas. There are a few plot inventions that seem a bit contrived in order to match the basic story in classic tale, but fortunately these are compensated with an ample number of new twists and turns that are introduced here.
Intelligently written, A Prisoner of Birth is in many ways an original story embedded within a comfortable and familiar plot, the result being a tremendously satisfying novel.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of A Prisoner of Birth and to Authors on the Web for providing an a copy of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
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