We are standing within the internal ward of the Tower of London amid faculty events and anorak-clad vacationers whereas Jeffrey Archer is explaining the best way to steal the Crown Jewels. Not simply any of our most valuable treasures thoughts, however the veritable tour de drive – the 1937 Imperial State Crown worn most just lately by King Charles III on the Coronation.

It is a brilliant, blustery day however nothing in nature compares to the mini-whirlwind of vitality and enthusiasm engendered by the best-selling novelist and former Tory politician as he powers across the historic citadel nestled within the shadow of Tower Bridge.

Passing alongside crenellated walkways, up and down spiral staircases and over bridges, he explains at 100mph how a grasp thief with a crack group may snatch the very jewel within the crown of the nation from underneath the noses of the authorities. His pleasure, it have to be mentioned, is barely contagious.

This is the fruits of two 12 months’s laborious work since he sat subsequent to a feminine visitor over dinner throughout a post-Covid cruise across the British Isles and she or he leaned in with the phrases each author dreads: “I’ve got a story which could be your next novel.”

Despite himself, he was mesmerised, much more so when he learnt that his (unnamed) fellow passenger was a member of the Royal Household. By the time their ship docked in Southampton, the Kane And Able and Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less writer had, to the slight chagrin of spouse Mary, who needed to remind him they had been on vacation, written a 30-page define of his subsequent e-book.

“It was so simple,” he marvels.

“How could we have all missed this? The only time the Crown Jewels have ever been stolen – even briefly – was by Colonel Thomas Blood in 1671 and he didn’t get very far. But she told me, ‘No one’s ever thought about it like this, Jeffrey’.”

And that brings us right here, right this moment, on the eve of worldwide publication of Traitors Gate,
his newest indubitable bestseller and the sixth quantity of the bold eight-book William Warwick sequence that started in 2019 when he was a mere 79-years-old.

At the center of the terrific new thriller, his twenty ninth by my reckoning, is revenge.

If grasp legal Miles Faulkner can pull off probably the most outrageous theft in historical past, Chief Inspector Warwick, answerable for the operation to ferry the Crown throughout London for the official opening of Parliament and his nemesis, shall be toast.

There is one thing particular a couple of good heist story, Archer admits, as we stroll previous the unique Traitors’ Gate, the place prisoners of the Tudors had been delivered for incarceration or execution.

“It’s the one type of thriller where we almost want the baddies to get away with it,” he smiles. “And in this case, they do.”

Having been gifted his concept, Archer spent a number of weeks painstakingly researching routes between the Tower and Buckingham Palace, the place the Crown is taken the day earlier than the State Opening of Parliament – the one time it ever leaves the high-security Jewel House. He took taxis, buses, Tubes, and even a river boat on the Thames.

It was, he explains, bodily exhausting however value it: “You can’t have people ringing up and saying, ‘That’s not possible, Jeffrey, I’ve just done that route and it doesn’t work’. Readers find great pleasure in saying, ‘On page 273 you write… but then, on page 292, you go on to say… and they can’t both be right!’

“John le Carré once told me he’d never written a book someone hadn’t found a mistake in. So, yes, I do my research.”

Without giving freely any spoilers, the writer calculated he may delay the official police convoy despatched to gather the jewels by seven minutes or so, thus permitting his gang to swoop in, idiot the guards, accumulate the jewels and disappear.

I need to admit, I had assumed his plot would contain some form of hijack, a dramatic Heat-style armed theft, however he snorts: “Boring! I dismissed that idea because it was too obvious.”

Instead, his crooks and their copycat convoy are hid within the underground automotive park of the close by Tower Hotel, able to drive confidently into the fortified advanced after the official name has come from the Palace that they’re on the best way.

“I have my man with his two cars and someone posing as the Lord Chamberlain in the hotel car park,” he explains.

“They can come out and be here in 30 seconds. The Palace has told them the convoy is on its way and it normally takes about 20 to 25 minutes to get here.

“For research purposes, I got a taxi at Buckingham Palace and the cabbie told me there were six routes one could take. I worked out how you could delay them: zebra crossings, roundabouts… you slow the whole route down. So my man ends up
with seven minutes and 20 seconds to get in and out with the Crown.”

The “magic” got here when he found a tiny automotive park at All Hallows by the Tower, the traditional Anglican church between the historic fortress and Tower Hill Tube.

There, his conspirators may dump their automotive – leaving The Sovereign’s Sceptre within the boot in a deliberate affront to the cops – earlier than disappearing onto the Underground, the priceless crown full with its Cullinan diamond centrepiece snuggled in an nameless Tower of London buying bag.

“The police aren’t yet looking for them… but any moment they will be. Our criminals are going to pass the real convoy coming in the opposite direction,” says Archer.

“This to me is that piece of magic you pray for. Park here next to this little church and suddenly London is laid out before you, you have a means of escape. So my man takes the Crown – I’m not telling you where – and purposely leaves the sceptre to show he could have taken that too.

“This is revenge, after all. The police have to work out where he’s gone… and that’s when the game begins.”

So there you have got it, women and gents. That’s the way you steal the crown.

Naturally, it’s fairly extra difficult in print, involving a pretend crown – Archer commissioned grasp jeweller Alan Gard, 85, to create an actual copy of the Imperial State Crown, which he did in 500 hours over 17 months – and all kinds of different crimson herrings. But you’ll should learn the e-book to seek out out extra!

We final met for the publication of Archer’s first William Warwick e-book, Nothing Ventured, when he advised me, with a nod to his eight many years: “I’m not a believer, though I do have a tendency to ask, ‘Can I do another book, please?’”

Despite his self-confessed atheism, he will need to have charmed somebody as a result of right here we’re, 4 years later, for the sixth e-book within the sequence. He laughs after I recommend he’s pumping them out: “I do one a year, I was up at 6am today writing.” Does he nonetheless have eight deliberate?

“Yes, but I’ve got a problem. I’m 83 and I’ve lost 35 people in the last year,” he confides. “I went to a funeral and memorial service only last week. It makes you think about it. At your age you don’t think about it.”

By “it”, I assume he’s referring to the chilly hand of the Grim Reaper? “Don’t put sentences in my mouth Matt,” he barks. “You’re a wicked man.”

Banter apart, he has grow to be conscious of his personal mortality. “I feel pretty good but the greatest runner of my day was Adrian Metcalfe, my closest friend and relay team-mate. Now dead. Of my rowing team of six, four of them are now dead.

“Frankly, I’m working harder than I have ever worked because I’m frightened of death.” A weekly therapeutic massage and private coaching session 3 times per week assist maintain him in form bodily, and it’s clear Archer’s psychological schools stay as sharp as ever.

“I can still put two sentences together and I’m three years older than Joe Biden,” he chuckles. “I made a speech last week where I got a standing ovation; he literally can’t put two sentences together. So why don’t I stop – I’ve had 27 number ones, why do I bother?”

He solutions his personal query: “I think this story is quite a good one and I want to write it. Then the next one.”

Pausing for a fast picture with the Tower’s Raven Master Chris Skaife, Archer takes us to see the Crown Jewels.

“Don’t forget, I’m married to a remarkably clever, energetic woman who became a dame when she ran Cambridge University Hospitals,” he continues.

“So it would be fairly hard to relax even if I wanted to – I’d get told off the whole time.”

Making our method by way of the serried ranks of vacationers, we pause briefly earlier than the Imperial State Crown, a powerful image of British royal historical past. “We copied it exactly. If you could see it I’d challenge you to spot the difference. Mind you, they may have to change the security here once the book is published,” he quips.

Archer’s new e-book is such a sometimes British story it’s shocking nobody’s completed it earlier than. It was revealed this week in some 47 nations. And he has an particularly big fanbase in India, he tells me, although not fairly such massive gross sales due to pirating.

“They think in India alone 100 million people have read me. They fly over, buy a copy at the airport and have it on the streets the next day.” I feel it’s honest to say he stays fairly flattered, joking: “I’d rather be read than dead. I’m a competitor by nature.”

While a lot of his thriller-writing friends are useless – Wilbur Smith, Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy, amongst others – or retired like former Express columnist Freddie Forsyth, Archer continues to be going robust.

Hugely charming and never in in the slightest degree modest about his achievements, he shares a self-deprecating story earlier than leaping in a black cab for his subsequent appointment.

“I was walking up the street the other day when a man says: ‘You’re Jeffrey Archer? Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less? What a book, what a book! Have you done anything since?’” He guffaws: “I’m serious.” And then he’s off. Having efficiently stolen the Crown Jewels, presumably to plan his subsequent legal enterprise.

• Traitors Gate by Jeffrey Archer (HarperCollins, £22) is out now. Visit expressbookshop.com or name Express Bookshop