Lord Jeffrey Archer dead at 86

Lord Jeffrey Archer has died at the age of 86.

The British author and former politician's death was confirmed by his publisher, HarperCollins, who noted that the Kane & Abel writer had died "suddenly and peacefully at home" on Monday.

"Jeffrey's career is the stuff of publishing legend," a statement to BBC News read. "He was the master storyteller and an editor's dream: phenomenally hard-working, utterly committed to completing draft after draft to get every word as perfect as possible, and a true champion of the 'team' nature of great publishing."

A cause of death was not disclosed.

Archer, a former Conservative Party deputy chairman, sold more than 300 million books during a writing career that spanned five decades.

His work was adapted for the screen on many occasions, including the 1985 CBS miniseries based on Kane & Abel, starring Peter Strauss and Sam Neill.

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

Archer's final book, Adam and Eve, is set to be released this month.

His career was interrupted by a stint in prison in 2001 after he was found guilty of lying and cheating in a 1987 libel case against The Daily Star newspaper. His wife, Mary, stood by him throughout, and they stayed married for 60 years.

Archer remained Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, a life peerage he received in 1992, and kept his membership of the House of Lords until he retired in 2024. British law required a specific Act of Parliament to revoke his peerage, which was never passed.