With nothing left to lose, the four strangers who are experts in their fields (University of Oxford professor, a respected doctor, art dealer, and an heir to an earldom) come together and plan to steal the money back, using Harvey’s interests and weaknesses against him. Harvey is a self-made guru of deceit who creates Prospecta Oil, a paper company that he uses to swindle four novice investors of their life savings. Said to have been inspired by Jeffrey Archer’s real-life experience of near-bankruptcy, the book has a polish immigrant to the United States named Harvey Metcalfe in the middle of proceedings. Publisher: Jonathan Cape (UK), Doubleday (US).Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (1976) A few non-fiction ones center around his experiences in life, most notably the time he spent in jail for committing perjury and perverting the course of justice. He has written many books in the fiction genre. However long it took, the Londoner seems to have found his calling as a writer as his books have received rave reviews, helping him rank amongst the best-selling novelists in the world with over 320 million copies sold worldwide.

He would later launch a political career, serving as a Conservative councilor on the Greater London Council and then a Member of Parliament before a financial scandal almost left him bankrupt and steered him towards the literary world. At one point, he trained to either join the army or the Metropolitan Police before settling for a job as a charity fundraiser. In his early days, Archer hoped to become a football player but ended up doing a variety of jobs. This is exactly the case of Jeffrey Archer who was a politician before he picked up the pen. It is not often that you come across someone who achieved great success as a writer after he only began writing as a way to avoid bankruptcy. Novelists who later in life are considered to be literary geniuses had usually spent a huge chunk of their early life learning the ropes of the business.

The Prodigal Daughter by Jeffrey Archer