Jeffrey Archer, a best-selling British author, politician, philanthropist, athlete and one-time jailbird, whose résumé seesawed between achievement and disgrace, died on Monday at his home in London. He was 86.
His publisher, Harper Collins, announced his death in a statement. His final novel, “Adam and Eve,” was scheduled for publication on Tuesday. Mr. Archer’s thrillers sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide. In his days as a politician — both as a member of Parliament and as deputy head of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party — he displayed a barely veiled hunger for the top job. His friendships and alliances eventually won him a place in the unelected House of Lords with the title Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare.
A political Houdini, he survived a perjury conviction in 2001 when he was found guilty of creating false diaries and concocting a story to win a trial over whether he had slept with a prostitute to whom he paid hush money. He amassed wealth from his 40-plus books, starting with “Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less,” published in 1976. “I was so low I would have sold fake Gucci bags on street corners,” he told The Chicago Tribune.
“Storytellers are very rare, but they create a lot of envy,” Mr. Archer said in an interview with fellow author Anthony Horowitz in 2011. His 1979 novel “Kane & Abel” sold more than 50 million copies.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing