Jeffrey Archer, British author and former politician, dies at 86

Jeffrey Archer, the British novelist and former ​politician, died at the age of ‌86 on Monday, AFP quoted his publisher HarperCollins as saying.

Archer died “suddenly and peacefully at his home between writing sessions”, said the publisher.

Author of 31 novels, he had sold more than 30 crore copies of his books worldwide. His final book, Adam and Eve, was scheduled to be published on Tuesday.

He had also been a member of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, often referred to as the Tories. Archer joined the party while he was a student at Oxford University, reported AFP. In 1969, he won a bye-election to become an MP at the age of 29.

Archer was brought to the brink of bankruptcy in 1974 after a Canadian industrial cleaning company in which he had invested collapsed. He published his first book, Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less, a year after that.

Under then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he was appointed the Tory deputy chairman in 1985.

However, he was forced to resign in October 1986, after the News of the World published a photo of Archer’s friend, Michael Stackpole, paying £2,000 to a sex worker.

The tabloid did not make claims about what the payments were for. However, the Daily Star alleged that the author had paid the woman for sex, after...

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