Twelve Red Herrings

Twelve Red Herrings (or 12 Red Herrings) is a 1994 short story collection by British writer and politician Jeffrey Archer. Archer challenges his readers to find "twelve red herrings", one in each story. The book reached #3 in the Canadian best-sellers (fiction) list.^[1] J. K. Sweeney from Magill Book Reviews (01/01/1995) reviews the stories as "An attempt, it must be said, which is of such a nature that quite often the author succeeds in the effort."^[2]

For the story "One Man's Meat..." the reader is offered the choice of four different endings: "Rare", "Burnt", "Overdone" and "À Point". Sweeney from Magill Book Reviews comments on this: "Each of the conclusions is quite plausible, although the average reader may find one far more convincing that the others--a circumstance which the author no doubt anticipated with a certain degree of relish."^[2]

Contents

The book contains 12 stories.

• "Trial and Error"
• "Cheap at Half The Price"*
• "Dougie Mortimer's Right Arm"*
• "Do Not Pass Go"*
• "Chunnel Vision"*
• "Shoeshine Boy"*
• "You'll Never Live to Regret It"*
• "Never Stop on the Motorway"*
• "Not for Sale"
• "Timeo Danaos"*
• "An Eye for an Eye"*
• "One Man's Meat..."

In the preface the author notes that the stories indicated with an asterisk are "based on known incidents (some of them embellished with considerable license)."

See also

• Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes

References

• Archer, Jeffrey. Twelve Red Herrings, Harper Collins, 1994. ISBN 0-7089-8811-3

External links

• Jeffrey Archer's official website