NEED TO KNOW
\nAuthor Jeffrey Archer is writing his last book, he tells PEOPLE in an interview ahead of the publication of End Game End Game will conclude the William Warwick series when it hits shelves on Sept. 23The author, who has also served in politics and spent time in jail on libel charges, reflects on his long career<\/p>\n
Storyteller Jeffrey Archer\u2019<\/a>s new book, End Game<\/a> (out Sept. 23), signals the close of a run of eight books with his cop hero William Warwick \u2014 and heralds the imminent end of his novel-writing.\n<\/p>\n Fifty years after his first novel Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less <\/a> was published (with a first print run of just 3,000), Archer is writing his last novel. Bathed in autumn sunshine in his penthouse apartment high above the River Thames, Kane and Abel<\/a> author Archer, 85, tells PEOPLE, \u201cI\u2019m going to write my final book.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Before then, the last in his series of William Warwick books, End Game<\/a>, presents a new \u201cwhat if?\u201d for readers: How close was the 2012 London Olympics to suffering a foreign state-backed terror attack? What if the late Queen Elizabeth<\/a> didn\u2019t make it to the opening ceremony that became famously associated with her lookalike parachuting<\/a> into the arena from a helicopter?\n<\/p>\n End Game sees Warwick once again up against nemesis Miles Faulkner and his crooked lawyer Booth Watson. It follows recent episodes of the Warwick story focusing on whether the Crown Jewels could be stolen <\/a>and the secret world of the intricate art forger<\/a>. Mercifully, the millions of people who attended the games and watched on TV were none the wiser about the efforts going on behind the scenes to keep people safe.\n<\/p>\n The author drew the real-life examples from talking to Commander Bob Broadhurst, head of security for those heady weeks in London. \u201cHe just didn’t give me two stories \u2014 he gave me 14,” Archer says. “And two of them, of course, would have closed the games.”\n<\/p>\n With a twinkle in his eye, the famed author says he used each of the 14 scenarios that Broadhurst gave him \u2014 and then invented another eight (the list is at the back of the novel, tempting readers to guess which were real and imagined) for Warwick and his team to tackle.\n<\/p>\n Jeffrey Archer in his penthouse apartment above the River Thames in London.<\/p>\n Dani Heaven<\/p>\n \u201cIf you met [Broadhurst], you’d see he’s very calm, very cool. Nothing washes over him,” Archer says, adding a quote And he fishes out a quote from Broadhurst that sums it up: \u201cA successful security operation has no headlines and no heroes, but it’s remarkable how close we came.\u201d\n<\/p>\n And now, it’s time to retire Warwick. \u201cI thought the arc of Constable, Sergeant, Inspector, Chief Inspector, Superintendent Chief Superintendent, was natural. I talked to two [police chiefs] and they said, \u2018You hit the right jobs that are really worth doing \u2014 you know, drugs, murder, royal protection, fraud.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Archer working in the light of his penthouse apartment in London.<\/p>\n Dani Heaven<\/p>\n The author teases that his next and final book \u201cis better than Kane and Abel,\u201d referring to his most famous work, which is now in print in 119 countries and 47 languages.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I told my publishers the idea six years ago, they begged me to stop writing the William Warwick books and do it immediately. And I said, “No, I’ll live to 86. Don’t worry.” I had to finish the arc.\u201d\n<\/p>\n He remains tight-lipped about his new project, beyond saying it is based on the wartime rivalry of Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill and that he was intrigued by a sentence in one of Hitler’s speeches.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThen I read a speech by Winston Churchill, countering Hitler’s. I realized that in 1936, they already sensed they were going to be up against each other,\u201d he says. \u201cI found that fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeffrey and Mary Archer in London in Sept. 2015.<\/p>\n Chris Jackson\/Getty\u00a0<\/p>\n Archer made his name writing family saga Kane and Abel, which was to be his savior \u2013 and his route to paying off huge debts that had him facing bankruptcy.\n<\/p>\n Those hard times had inspired his first book Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less. That had been turned down by 14 publishers and he was offered only a \u00a33,000 advance for the manuscript. Married to Cambridge university professor Mary, they had two sons, aged around 5 and 3, at the time. \u201cAnd my wife was saying, don’t you think it’s time you’ve got a real job because 3,000 copies is not exactly a triumph.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.\n<\/p>\n British author Anthony Horowitz praises Archer\u2019s first book for \u201cnot just the cleverness of its construction but the pace of the storytelling.\u201d\u00a0He adds, “These are Jeffrey Archer\u2019s hallmarks and it\u2019s remarkable that, now in his eighties, he has lost none of his energy. I see him from time to time \u2014 we have combative lunches together \u2014 and he\u2019s still one of the most fascinating and thoughtful men I know.\u201d\n<\/p>\n As the bestsellers from First Among Equals, to his more recent Clifton Chronicles series kept flowing, Archer combined his novel-writing career with that of a politician, serving first as a Member of Parliament and then as one of Margaret Thatcher\u2019s trusted lieutenants as deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. He became friends with the late Princess Diana<\/a> and the Duchess of Kent, whose requiem mass<\/a> he attended on Sept. 16.\n<\/p>\n Jeffrey Archer in the days when he was a frontline politician, and as his book Kane and Abel was adapted for TV by the BBC in May 1986.<\/p>\n Stephen Hyde\/Radio Times\/Getty<\/p>\n In 2001, he had to face a different reality. Archer was sentenced to prison for four years (he served two) for perjury following a libel case with a British tabloid, the Daily Star. But Archer turned to what he knew to get him through. Writing, he said, \u201ckept me sane\u201d and his three volumes of Prison Diaries became surprise hits. He says, \u201cI thought they’d be a passing thing.”\n<\/p>\n Adds Horowitz: \u201cIt\u2019s clear that his entire life has been as wild and unpredictable as his stories \u2014 and the two collide with his Prison Diaries which remain one of the best accounts of life in jail and a testament to his extraordinary resilience.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Today, more than two decades on, Archer is clear-eyed about his lucky breaks. \u201cI realized how privileged I was. I have never got over the young man who sat on the end of my bed. He was about 24 and said, I’ll swap places with you. I said \u2018What do you mean? I’m 60. I’m a boring old toad.\u2019 He said, \u2018I’m 24, I’m a drug addict. I don’t know how much longer I\u2019ve got.\u2019 He died two years later. So I think it woke me up just how lucky I was.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cI had a strong family, was financially secure. I wasn’t coming out to \u2018How will I earn tomorrow’s penny?\u2019\u201d He did worry, though, if the \u201creaders would desert me.\u201d They didn\u2019t.\n<\/p>\n The jacket of Jeffrey Archer’s latest book, End Game.<\/p>\n Harper Collins Publishing<\/p>\n With some of his books getting optioned for TV series and movies again (and Bradley Cooper<\/a>, he says, is among two parties who have asked about rights to Kane and Abel recently) Archer is not taking the deals for granted. \u201cMy son quite rightly says, \u2018Don’t celebrate, dad, until you’re eating the popcorn.\u2019 And I think he’s right.\u201d\n<\/p>\n And if none of those come to fruition, there will be more from Archer, who writes for two hours each morning, starting at 6 a.m.\n<\/p>\n “That gives me over 700 hours a year. And I just keep to it,\u201d he says. \u201cI will write short stories. I may write screenplays. I may write a play, but the next book is going to be the final one.\u201d\n<\/p>\n