The Perfect Murder - Jeffrey Archer

Name of the story: The Perfect Murder

Author: Jeffrey Archer

Source: A Twist In The Tale

Story Number: 10

Jeffrey Archer doesn’t need any introduction. Along with his bestselling novels, he is also a wonderful writer of short stories. His first three collections ‘A Quiver Full Of Arrows’, ‘A Twist In The Tale’ & ‘Twelve Red Herrings’ are a treat for any reader, which encompasses stories across all genres, each with a wonderful twist which the reader wouldn’t have anticipated. Somehow for me, his three recent collections didn’t leave up to the same expectations as the earlier three. I’m picking the first story from his second collection ‘A Twist in the Tale’ as it includes all the typical characteristics of an Archer story with an added bonus of the courtroom drama.

The story starts off with the narrator expressing surprise that his mistress Carla had slept with another man. One evening, Carla calls him and asks him not to come to her house as she is going off to her sister’s place, which he doesn’t believe. When he does go to her house to check up on this, he observes Carla engaging another man. After watching the man kiss Carla and leave her house in a BMW after tearing up the parking ticket, the narrator confronts Carla and in the heat of exchanging words, he hits her on the jaw and walks out. What he doesn’t realize till the next day is the fact that this blow proved fatal for Carla. When the police declare that they are looking for a murderer, he puts in an anonymous call and gives the description of the other man who was with Carla. The police track this man through the parking ticket that was issued and charges him for Carla’s murder.

The second part of the story is the trial of the accused with our narrator taking a very keen interest in the proceedings. But in those six months leading to the trial, he has had a terrible time, looking over his shoulder all the time, every telephone ring or the door bell sending shivers down his spine, his work life deteriorating to such an extent that he gets fired.  Being unemployed end up as a blessing in disguise as he is able to attend the court proceedings everyday and watch the trail of the man whom he has accused for his own crime. In spite of a gritty performance from the defense lawyer, the case against the accused looks hopeless. Will an innocent man go the chair? Has our hero committed a perfect crime? The end of the tale reveals a cunning twist which the reader can anticipate (but few will) as all the required clues have been fairly presented in the second half of the story.

No Comebacks - Frederick Forsyth

Name of the story: No Comebacks

Author: Frederick Forsyth

Source: No Comebacks

Story Number: 9

Frederick Forsyth is probably most famous for his novel ‘The Day Of The Jackal’ which won the Edgar for the best novel in 1972. He has a number of other noteworthy novels to his credit but his short story collection is rarely spoken off. It contains 10 skillfully plotted stories with an ultimate twist in the end. I pick the title story in the collection as this suits best my definition of a fine story.

Mark Sanderson is one of the richest bachelors in London who has the habit of eventually getting whatever he wants. He always wanted to have only one woman as his wife but that lady is married to another man and stays in another country. A chance meeting ignites his passion for her, he courts her for a week and ends up proposing to her when she is about to leave for Spain, which the lady politely declines saying that her husband in Spain needs her more than he needs her. She agrees that she would marry him had it not been for her husband.

After brooding over for weeks, he decides that she has to be his wife and this obsession with the lady turns into madness and what follows is a detailed plot to assassinate the husband. He first hires a detective agency to learn every detail about his intended victim, gets a new house for himself under an assumed name, does research to find a mercenary team in England, through the team in England he hires a top notch assassin from another country so that the assassin doesn’t identify the very famous personality that he is in London, all breathtakingly told in the same style as the jackal who plots the assignation of the French president in the famous novel. The assassin then has to think off a way to smuggle a gun into Spain and he finally carries out his execution successfully at the end of 3 weeks. The killer and the client meet for the final payment and there in the last line of the story, the client gets the biggest jolt of his life as does the reader!