Name: False Impression
ISBN: 9780230527607

Jeffrey Archer

Anton Lesser

False Impression

Julie Twist

I always forget what an brilliant storyteller Jeffrey Archer is, until I pick up another of his books, and this one is no exception. Encompassing New York, London and Bucharest, the story follows Anna Petrescu through the days following 9/11 involving expensive art, money, fraud and murder....oh and the FBI of course.

It's September 10, 2001, and Lady Victoria Wentworth is sitting in spacious Wentworth Hall considering the sad state of family fortunes when a female intruder slips in, slashes her throat and cuts off her ear.  The next day in New York, art expert Anna Petrescu heads to her job as art wrangler for wealthy magnate Bryce Fenston of Fenston Finance.  The pair's offices are in the Twin towers, and when disaster strikes, each sees the tragedy as an opportunity to manipulate a transaction scheduled to transfer ownership of a legendary Van Gogh painting.

False impression

Lucas Melin

The first third of the book is terribly predictable. The second third picks up with more of a thriller feel as the story progresses, but unfortunately the final third reverts to its predictable ways, and the ending leaves the reader unsatisfied. The plot devices are tired and over-used, a romance is wedged forcefully into the story and the brief swearing is one-off and absolutely pointless. All in all, False Impression is a cheesy thriller whose only offering is a novelty theme, and even that was deemed not interesting enough by the author given that it needed to be spiced up with an unrelated secondary plot about the events of 9/11.