[Archer] has written a tale [Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less] about four men who, collectively, are cheated out of a million dollars and who resolve to steal back the money from the swindler. There could be a moral here for other public figures who have seen their financial dreams dissolve. We have Jeffrey (Howard) Archer 1940– © Jerry Bauerhad plenty of "inside" political novels, by Douglas Hurd and others, so why not the inside business novel?

Jeffrey Archer's ingenious plot, with its echoes of Edgar Wallace and vintage Sexton Blake, is the sort to take the public fancy. The novel has a curious racy innocence all its own. It is told with that name-dropping and logging of train times that is thought to lend authenticity…. There are walk-on parts for people as diverse as Lord Lichfield, Linda Lovelace and Harold Macmillan. Yet sophisticated it is not...