In an interview included in my edition of this book, James Archer (born 1940) said that this novel is a contemporary retelling of Alexander Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo. Since I have not read yet the said classic book, I checked its synopsis in Wikipedia. It seems that Archer did a good job by using the plot but making it current by putting his personal touch on it.
Among the different literary genres, I must admit that suspense thriller and romance are my least favorites. I love reading read fiction, classics, memoirs and children's. Sometimes, I also pick up books belonging to sci-fi, young adult, travel, and history but I rarely read suspense thriller and romance. I think the main reason is that these two follow certain formulas and the author should only inject the plot, characters, milieu, conflicts, climax, denouement and conclusion. One cannot deviate from the formula since readers who go to the bookstore know what they want. As examples, in suspense thriller, the issue must be resolved in the end while in romance, the boy and the girl should end up together. In other words, they should have T"happy" endings.
In fact, among the 500 novels I've read, I've only read: Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and The Lost Symbol;Ken Folett's The Eye of the Needle, Hornet's Nest and Whiteout; John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came in From Cold; Ian Fleming's Casino Royale; Vince Flynn's Protect and Defend; John Grisham's The Appeal and Robert Ludlum's The Ambler Warning.
For me, among all of those, A Prisoner of Birth is one of the best, maybe comparable to those works by Le Carre and Fleming. Archer is definitely better than Flynn, Ludlum and Grisham. Archer is said to be the British equivalent of the American Grisham. I do not agree with this. For me, Archer is better than Grisham.
Danny Cartwright is an illiterate man who is about to get married to Beth Wilson. However, on the night of Danny's proposal to Beth, a drunk military man Spencer Craig kills Beth's brother Bernie Wilson who is with the couple on that night. Spencer is with his 3 other friends who are all influential and the court gives weight on their testimonies in favor of Spencer. So even if Danny is innocent, the jury gives him a guilty verdict: imprisonment of 22 years. In prison, Danny meets his lookalike Nicholas Moncrieff who is an ex-soldier and an only scion of a rich businessman. Nicholas taught Danny on how to read, write and act like him. However, Nicholas is killed by a fellow prisoner and this gives opportunity for Danny to pretend to be Nicholas and see the outside world as a free man earlier than the completion of his sentence. What follows is how he takes revenge over the 4 men who has wronged him and his fiancee.
Very engaging, detailed court scenes. I have not been into an actual court hearing so I appreciated how Archer depicted in details the court drama. The prison scenes are likewise very realistic and in the same interview, Archer said that he based everything on his own experienced. Archer was also imprisoned in 2001-2003 for perjury and perverting the course of justice. (Source: Wikipedia) My only question are there still illiterate people in London?. I mean, in the Philippines, which is a third-world country, illiterates seem to be too few that in my 46 years in the country, I only met one no-read, no-write person so far.
Other than this, this novel is highly recommended for all suspense-thriller fans. If you love Grisham, I am telling you: Archer is better.