A
Prisoner of Birth
Non-series
Jeffrey
Archer
St.
Martin's Minotaur (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 ARC of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
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