The fifth book of Jeffrey Archer’s The Clifton Chronicles is called Mightier than the Sword (Pan Macmillan). Coming from a bestselling author, the title seems to belabour the point. “History would probably prove me wrong,” Archer declares. In India to launch the book, the Peer elaborates. “The writer survives while dictators die.”
Set between 1964 and 1970, the book packs in a failed IRA bombing on the maiden voyage of a luxury liner, land deals, an election, a political sex scandal, a suicide, shady deals, shaky banks, cultured foreigners, the Berlin wall, Beatlemania, James Bond and a court case for libel ending in the mandatory cliff hanger complete with a crucial letter going missing. The Clifton Chronicles is almost like a book version of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’.
Coming back to the title, at the centre of Mightier than the Sword is Harry Clifton’s attempts to free Anatoly Babakov, a Russian interpreter, who is imprisoned for writing a book on Joseph Stalin, Uncle Joe. “Babakov is based on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,” Archer comments. “I was reading him in the Sixties.” During an interview to promote Best Kept Secret , the third of the series (MetroPlus, March 13, 2013), the 75-year-old author said his favourite time period was the Sixties. “It was a great time. I was young, I was in Oxford, in Parliament…”
And when at Oxford, Archer was friends with royalty. “The Nawab of Pataudi was a good friend. He hosted me in India and I did an auction for Sharmila Tagore.” The Indian connection sees Sebastian, Harry and Emma’s son, fall in love with an Indian girl. “They meet and fall in love at Lords. The girl, however, returns to India as her marriage has already been fixed. Sebastian follows her to India, so eight chapters are set in Mumbai. Also, there would be a special cover for India with Sebastian and the girl on a motorbike in Mumbai.”
Though The Clifton Chronicles were originally conceived as a series of five books, Mightier than the Sword is not the final instalment. “Harry is only 51! I went to the publisher and said it is going to be seven books now. Harry would have to be in his 70s before I can do the thing, you know…”
Archer has said often enough that there is a lot of him in Harry, who is also a writer. Harry writes crime thrillers with Detective Sergeant William Warwick, solving dastardly crimes. “He is the Agatha Christie of his age.” On crime fiction, Archer comments, “Of course, it is genre fiction and rarely rises above it, but there is some excellent work being done in the genre.” He goes on to recommend a book, wagging his finger and insisting the name is “not for printing!” In the age of micro fiction and 140-character limits, how does he explain the success of a book series? “It is weird but there it is. There are millions reading Mightier than the Sword , Kane and Abel has gone into the 100th reprint… There is space for everything.”
While Archer says he will not be coming out with a William Warwick series, he says, after the Clifton Chronicles, he would be returning to short stories. “I have 10 of the 12 ready. I love doing short stories. I am lucky as I am never bored. I would be bored if I was doing one thing only — I might get bored of Poirot or Miss Marple if I were to write 80-odd novels; Christie was a clever girl.”
While The Clifton Chronicles are about Harry, other characters quite often take over the action. “I run with it. I love wicked Virginia! There was a point in this book where Harry had almost become secondary till the Babakov plot point brought him back to the centre of action.”
Apart from being a rip-roaring tale of deceit, revenge and love, the thing that makes Mightier than the Sword stand out are the little touches like Vince Vega would say. There is the journalist trying to get an interview with the “terrorist” Nelson Mandela for instance. “That is what people thought at the time! There were also whispers that the prime minister Harold Wilson quit because he was a communist. The truth is he resigned because he suffered from Alzheimer’s. All that will come out in the next book where Margaret Thatcher will make an appearance.” And then what’ll happen to Harry and Co., only time will tell.
