The Washington Club
ByPeter Corris
Sydney: Bantam, 1997. 254 pp., $12.95 (pb)
The Fourth Estate
By Jeffrey Archer
London: Harper Collins, 1996. 551 pp., $14.95 (pb)
Review by Tony Smith
Supposedly, power causes conflict, and conflict produces the drama which underlies good crime and thriller writing. Yet these two recent offerings by established writers Corris and Archer suggest that the world of big business is about as exciting as watching grass grow. But perhaps that is appropriate, because both books conform to the commercial expectations of publishing rather than to any literary values.
Corris, who usually denies he has any pretensions to write literature, resurrects his P.I. Cliff Hardy for what is perhaps his technically best written but least interesting yarn in terms of plot, theme and character.
There has been a break in the Hardy series, during which Corris swore that he would never write another. That promise probably made most fans sad, but for a writer who knows about boxers making comebacks, breaking it should have been out of the question.
Archer's main achievement, on the other hand, is that he manages to stretch a simple tale over 550 pages. The plot line holds few surprises, and the characters are close to caricatures.
Two media tycoons vie for control of the largest empires in the English-speaking world. One is an Australian who takes over newspapers, takes on British print unions and takes out US citizenship. The other is a Britisher of Central European Jewish origin who eventually drowns following financial disaster and disgrace. How silly! Such impossibilities.
Corris, of course, is into physical violence, whereas Archer is into institutional and cultural domination. Hardy's latest adventure is peppered with explosions, gunshots, assaults, cruelty and threatening behaviour.
Although the jacket notes suggest that Hardy encounters the world of "corporate high fliers", he barely scratches the surface. The protagonists could have made their fortunes in any way.
Archer's idea of sexual contact is to leave the reader to imagine. Perhaps, being a British Conservative, he thinks that the reader needs no assistance. Corris, by contrast, is into grunting, thrusting, erections, wetness and exhaustion. In this case, Corris mixes porn, auto-eroticism and violence in tasteless quantities.
About the only thing Corris' Cliff Hardy fails to penetrate is the world of big business. Perhaps that is his metier and his message. Hardy's adventures are always on the wrong side of the tracks. Archer's characters are so one dimensional that they would never be found in one of Corris' colourful tales.
There are sympathetic works of fiction which increase the romantic image of journalists, politicians, even lawyers. There are farces which leave the reader with some understanding of plumbers, farmers, doctors and hairdressers. And then there is this supposed thriller genre, which tells one kind of truth about the world of big business. It is shallow and lacks soul.