Jeffrey Archer Dies: Bestselling ‘Kane & Abel’ Author & Politician Was 86

Jeffrey Archer, the prolific British author and former politician, has died at the age of 86.

Archer’s publisher HarperCollins confirmed his death in a statement, revealing that the Kane & Abel writer died “suddenly and peacefully at home” on Monday. A cause of death was not disclosed.

Archer, a former Conservative member of parliament, sold more than 300 million books during a writing career that spanned five decades.

HarperCollins claims that Archer, who also served in the House of Lords, is the only author ever to have been a #1 bestseller in fiction, short stories, and non-fiction

Archer’s work was adapted for the screen on many occasions, including the 1985 CBS miniseries based on Kane & Abel, which starred Peter Strauss as Abel Rosnovski and Sam Neill as William Lowell Kane.

ITV adapted First Among Equals in 1986, starring Jeremy Child, James Faulkner, David Robb, Tom Wilkinson, while Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less was adapted by the BBC in 1990.

His political career, which included a spell as the Conservative Party’s deputy chairman, was interrupted by a spell in prison in 2001 after he was found guilty of lying and cheating in a 1987 libel case against The Daily Star newspaper.