Shall We Tell the President?

The question remains until the last page.

The third and final book in the Kane & Abel series wraps things up with a … flitter.

[Spoiler alert!]

Then, on the last page, it’s still not answered.

I’m all for cliffhangers and unhappy endings, but I actually really want to know if they were going to tell the president. Seeing that this is the third and final book in the series, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to know unless I tweet Mr. Archer and ask him. Maybe it’s like the end of The Sopranos series where we also don’t know what happens as it blacks out. We’re left hanging, we have to think for ourselves, they’re not going to tell us. No, they’re really not going to tell us.

So, no, I’m not going to tweet Mr. Archer and ask him because he had a choice at the end of his book and he clearly made it. Maybe, I don’t know, he wants us to read more books. Maybe he’s just that kind of guy who wants to leave us a little hanging. He’s written so many books, in others he doesn’t leave us hanging so maybe he’s just mixing it up a bit.

Plus, we’re not talking about a life or death situation, it’s more just, well, did they tell the president?

When should a book be a series and when should it not?

Jeffrey Archer is a master storyteller. He has more books out than I even have in my head. He’s the consummate pro. So my question is not so much aimed at him, but at a series in general: when do you know if your book should be a series?

Frankly, I think this was a stretch. The Kane and Abel story is one of my all-time favorites. I basically kept reading because I wanted more of those two men. But then the second book was mostly about the daughter and then the third book was mostly about an FBI agent and a plan to assassinate the daughter. No Kane. No Abel.

It’s no longer really a series about Kane and Abel then, right? Is that terrible? Of course not. But a big giant book number one and then a few stragglers. It reminds me of a blockbuster movie and then they make a few more to just milk the first one.

Anyway. Still a good read and especially the last 100 pages had me turning them quickly to get to that last one where, ahem, I still didn’t learn what I wanted to know.