Shall We Tell the President?

By: Jeffrey Archer

Narrated by: Lorelei King

Master storyteller Jeffrey Archer keeps the pace sizzling in this final installment in the Kane and Abel trilogy, Shall We Tell the President?, a daring political thriller where treason and betrayal threaten to topple an American dynasty.

After years of great sacrifice and deep personal tragedy, Florentyna Kane has finally become the first woman president in America. But on the very day that she is sworn into office, powerful forces are already in motion to take her life.

The FBI investigates thousands of false threats every year. This time, a reliable source has tipped them off about an assassination attempt. One hour later, the informant and all but one of the investigating agents are dead. The lone survivor: FBI Special Agent Mark Andrews. Now, only he knows when the killers will strike. But how can he alone unravel a ruthless conspiracy—in less than one week? The race to save the first woman president begins now…

Includes a bonus interview with the author

Critic reviews

“King performs expressively, adding just the right amount of excitement to the story.” —Library Journal

Good transition from original story

Nice to have competent President! First female for US. Mix in FBI , also competent and you have a very good story.

Good read

This was probably the weakest of the three books. It led you to believe it was going to be about Florentyna Rosnovski; however, that wasn't it at all. The plot was about the FBI investigation into the potential killing of the President. It was a good solid read; however, it wasn't quite what I'm used to when I read Jeffrey Archer.

Meh. Nothing special in the story

The twists are very average. Not much closure in the end either. Pales in comparison to the first book.

Truth in advertising, please

So here I was, thinking I was reading a book written in 1977 and thinking what a wonderful political gamer Archer was with some of the events he thought might happen in the near future. Then the prognostications went a step too far--too close to events that actually happened in the early 1980; this book just could not have been written in 1977. I was not reading the 1977 version that I read and loved so many years ago and still have on my bookshelf--and the version that I thought I was buying because honestly, it has been so long since I read the book that I could not remember who the President was in that version.

It turns out that Archer revised the book in 1986 making it Book 3 of the Kane and Abel series, which came out after the original Shall We Tell the President? At first, I thought the changes had been made in 2013, inferred from the copyright info in the Audible description. It wasn't until I did some research that I learned that the changes were made in 1986. I really would have like Audible to tell me this up front. I feel mislead--and like it was my fault because I didn't know that Archer had revised the book. Well, everybody, now you know.

The big changes in the story were to make Florentyna Kane the President of the United States and to change the year from 1981 to the early 1990s. Beyond that most of the original text remained intact; I followed along for a few chapters with my 1977 paperback once I realized what was going on. There were some changes in phrasing, some changes in the US Senators whose names appear in the story and the addition of events from the Reagan presidency. Hopefully, this clears up the confusion: written in 1977; revised in 1986; new audio release in 2013

Now to the story itself. For me, this is a nice little thriller. It is light on the graphic violence--not absent but kept to a minimum. The body count is low. The tension isn't heart stopping and I do want to keep reading to see how it turns out. I find it to be classic Archer and I actually prefer his early thrillers and sagas to what he has written in the past decade and a half.

Finally, I agree with all the complaints about the narrator. Wrong voice for this story and she definitely needs to learn how to pronounce Birch Bayh's name properly--it's not like it hasn't been in the news for the past 40 years. Drives me nuts when narrators don't do their homework; fingernails on a blackboard!

A dated waste of time

Not Archer’s best. A high paces suspenseful last hour. A main plot line totally unresolved.