Recently, I finished reading “The Fourth Estate” by Jeffrey Archer.
It was a nice read – a bit long though. At some places it becomes boring.
The overall storyline is interesting. What is more interesting is its simmilarity to real life media tycoons Rupert Murdoch and Maxwell. There are too many simmilarities to ignore and it looks like the real story has been spiced up and censored wherever required to give it a look of a fiction novel.
Murdoch like Townsend, was born to aristocrat family in Australia and they moved on to United Kingdom and then to USA to conquer the media empire. On the other hand Armstrong like Maxwell followed the trail from war torn Germany to the British army and both ended up in United Kingdom and then in USA to fight the penultimate battle with his arch rival. The incidence of misappropriation of pension funds brings the fiction and real life drama a step closer. However the climax is the way the novel describes the death of Armstrong which is very simmilar to that of Maxwell.
I found it more interesting as I read this book after I saw biography coverage about Maxwell on History Channel (most probably).
Worth a read!
Abhishek
There is very little fiction in the book. Probably the change in names, could be one. The pension funds were siphoned off by Robert Maxwell and its no fiction.
Yep – that about sums it up – I knew about the mysterious disappearance of Robert Maxwell and connectet the other character to Rupert Murdoch. Any idea regarding the women in his life ? Sounds a bit far fetched that they both (susan and Kate ) lived with him before marrying – the old establishment of Melbourne wouldn’t have accepted that !
We are reviewing the book on saturday for our bookclub – should get a bit of interesting feedback.
I too thought it was a bit long and drawn out – however the master Archer had certainly done his homework
Cheers – Vicki Stokes (Sth Australia)