Jeffrey Archer. The incorrigible liar. It's ok to call him that as he went to jail for perjury.
The novel Kane and Abel from 1979 set him on the map. It was a worldwide blockbuster and allowed him to get over his financial difficulties that derailed his parliamentary career as a Tory MP.
Kane and Abel the glossy US television series is directed by Buzz Kulik. Already adept in bringing hit books to a television near you.
The first episode charts the rise of two men born in the wrong side of tracks in the early 1900s. William Kane (Sam Neill) is from old Boston money. A maths genius descended from a family of bankers.
Abel Rosnovski (Peter Strauss) had no such luck. He is the illegitimate son of the local Polish aristocrat. Abel learns the truth when his real father is dying and he inherits the title of Baron. By this time Poland is under Russian occupation.
Abel escapes the Russian gulag, avoids getting his hand chopped off by the Turks for theft and ends up in America. Where he starts as a waiter in a hotel and ends up becoming part owner of a chain.
Whereas Kane whose father died in the Titanic becomes an investment banker who foresaw the Wall street crash. The only hiccup he had apart from the death of his father was a scoundrel of a stepfather.
The first episode ends with these two contrasting men at loggerheads. Kane's bank would not stop the foreclosure of the hotel's Abel co-owned. His mentor killed himself.
You come away from the first episode thinking this is a trashy novel with paper thin characters. The episode really goes through all the cliches, Strauss hams it up. Neill already regards Strauss's acting style from the time of the dinosaurs.
