I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11139103

You know... You can read this book and pass time. But it's not a good book. Not in my opinion. Some things sound random and most part of it is pure luck.

Meh. It was more of interest for the Brit-scandal author with the crazy involved plot but it moved much like any other supermarket fiction. Popcorn novel.

This was surprisingly entertaining - I forget what a great storyteller Archer is. Interesting storyline even if some parts were weaker than others. Worth a read.

The first third of the book is terribly predictable. The second third picks up with more of a thriller feel as the story progresses, but unfortunately the final third reverts to its predictable ways, and the ending leaves the reader unsatisfied. The plot devices are tired and over-used, a romance is wedged forcefully into the story and the brief swearing is one-off and absolutely pointless. All in all, False Impression is a cheesy thriller whose only offering is a novelty theme, and even that was deemed not interesting enough by the author given that it needed to be spiced up with an unrelated secondary plot about the events of 9/11.

Not the best writing in the world, but an engaging plot.

This is the first Jeffrey Archer novel I've read, though I've long been a huge fan of his short stories. I was a bit surprised to find the novel more... pop-y than I expected. (That's not very clear. The best adjective I can come up with is "Dan Brown-y," but that's a bit more unkind than I intend.) The story was full of slightly cheap thrills and most of the characters were a bit cartoonish.

That being said, I still stayed up too, too late finishing it, because I was really enjoying the fun, easy read. I loved the glimpse into the baffling world of art collecting, and I was VERY curious to see which shell the painting wound up under. (The dust jacket said the plot was a delightful game of cat-and-mouse, but it was also at least as much a shell game.)

Though the dust jacket also promised a shocking twist at the end (Archer's trademark in short stories), it all seemed pretty straight-forward to me. I guess

Spoiler

Tina

was maybe supposed to be the shocker? Or maybe

Spoiler

the final switch of the painting that Krantz cut up? That was too much a forced coincidence to be very impressed there

. My suspension of disbelief was also tried a bit as the climax progressed and

Spoiler

Krantz was able to crab-walk for hundreds of yards, climb buildings, and dive into laundry tubes while recovering from a gunshot wound.

So a fun read. I'll give some of his other novels a shot, though like Steven King, I suspect his real literary strength will continue to show best in his short stories.