An astonishing short story collection from the New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Archer, To Cut a Long Story Short. A dying man doesn't know which of his relations to leave his fortune to, only to find out who really cares about him. A chance overheard conversation changes the course of an entire man's life. A woman savors every word of a letter from her lover while her husband reads over her shoulder. A criminal on the loose confesses that he is desperate to be caught. A widowed mother learns the cold truth about her second husband at the dawn of her third marriage. A pencil, the cruelest of the artist's tools, leaves nothing to chance...