New Delhi, Oct. 6 -- The first Jeffrey Archer I picked up was Shall We Tell the President? Those were the days when a book could hold my attention for hours. The cover's promise, "6 days, 13 hours and 37 minutes to go", reeled me in. Over the next few months, I kept borrowing and returning his books from the local library.

Archer died on Monday, October 5, aged 86, a day before his final novel, Adam & Eve, was published. In 50 years of writing, he wrote 30 novels along with short stories, plays, children's books, and three volumes of prison diaries. He ended up selling more than 300 million copies. Even so, he doesn't seem to find space on younger readers' shelves now.

India was one of Archer's biggest markets, and he visited often. In ...