The Sins of the Father (The Clifton Chronicles, 2)

This is the second book in a page-turning family saga chronicle of 5 books by master story teller, Jeffrey Archer. The story covers the lives of the Clifton and Barrington families who live in and around Bristol in England and is this book is set during the time of the Second World War, both in England and America. The secret of Jeffrey Archer's success, despite his flawed personal history, is that he has always been is one of the best story tellers around. He tells a tale and then weaves another tale around it. The characters, both good and bad, are skilfully crafted and become essential elements in telling his tales. Before you know it you are totally hooked on what is going to happen next. In this book we follow the life of Harry Clifton, the son of a poor docker who transformed himself from an under-achieving child of a poor family to be able to enter Oxford University. At the start of the Second World War, to get sufficient experience to be accepted for the Navy, Harry leaves Oxford to work as a junior officer on a cargo ship. When the ship is torpedoed by a U Boat in the North Atlantic he is rescued by an American passenger ship. In an attempt to release himself from insoluble personal and emotional problems with the Barrington family back in England, Harry takes the identity of another officer he hardly knows who drowned in the attack. When he arrives in New York under the assumed name he is immediately arrested for murder. Once again Harry's courageous character and intelligence allow him to cope with life in jail and overcome its limitations. While in jail he keeps a detailed diary that will become the secret of his later success. Back in England, his family, and most of the Barringtons are devastated to hear that Harry Clifton has drowned. Harry's mother receives a letter from someone connected with the rescue but because she is illiterate she refuses to open it. His girl friend Emma cannot believe the news and travels to New York to find out what really happened. Meanwhile back in England Emma's unscrupulous father Hugo lives a life of deceit, insolvency and lies. When his father dies, leaving him to head the family shipping line, Hugo's mismanagement rapidly brings the family fortunes to the edge of insolvency. Meanwhile his son Giles leaves Oxford to join the Army and becomes a hero of the seige of Tobruk. To tell more would spoil the reader's enjoyment of the tale. While I really enjoyed the first book, Only Time Will Tell, I thought this book was better and I couldn't put it down. Once again Archer leaves you with an unfinished dramatic development making one anxious to read the next book straight away. Other reviewers see this as a fault - I find it a challenging way of moving to the next book in the saga. My greatest concern is that it may be over a year before the next book is published, and then Archer will leave me wanting to read the next one....! This is not really a stand alone book as many of the developments depend on a knowledge of the previous book. I highly recommend that if possible your should read Only Time Will Tell before reading this book.

In the Clifton Series, Jeffery Archer has crafted characters that draw you into the story. Although I find some of the characters' behaviors a bit hard to believe at times, (they don't behave the way I think real people would), the story is compelling enough to make you want to read more. I find that by the last few chapters, I'm speed reading to see what happened. Occasionally, Mr. Archer will just drop a plot thread, leaving you wondering what happened with that part, but it's not significant enough to keep you from finishing the book. This author doesn't write my usual fare, and yet, I keep buying the next in the series. What I like best about his works is his style...easy to read, with flowing sentence structure. He does something interesting with sections of the book: each character is featured through a period of years, then the next chapters in that section will follow up with what the other characters are doing related to those events. Then the next section will feature a different character for the same period of years, and the story is filled out with what everyone else is doing related to that character. Really interesting way to do things. Having read a few other books outside this series, I've discovered Mr. Archer is fond of certain plot devices (characters in prison, mistaken or unrevealed identities, blood ties between characters unbeknownst to the characters themselves, settling issues between characters in court.) But he also chooses interesting time periods, which makes the novels fun. I can recommend this series if you're looking for an entertaining set of books with characters that you'll like.

Enthralling narrative of the many different and unique aspects of the lives of Harry, Emma, and Giles during the this difficult period of history. Well written and a great read.

I enjoyed the first book in the series immensely and wanted to continue reading. This is a great series.

Jeffrey Archer does another fine job in this second book of his "Clifton Chronicles" series. Once again, the characters of Harry, Maisie, Emma, Giles, and Hugo are involved in their various struggles, this time with World War II as the backdrop. Out of all these characters, there is one who stands out the most. Hugo Barrington, easily one of the most despicable characters I've ever seen in fiction, commits many machinations that stand out and give the book the feel of a prime-time soap opera. My only real complaint about this book (and the series so far) is that the character of Harry, and also his mother Maisie seem to be almost angelic in the eyes of those whom they come into contact with. It's almost as though every other character views them as smarter and better than everyone else. To me, it reads like Archer has made idols of them both and placed them on pedestals above the rest of his creations. Another grievance could be that there are also too many wild coincidences occurring in the lives of these characters (characters having the same lawyer, the same private investigator, etc.), but it could be argued that these coincidental events are a necessary evil in fiction writing and are used to further the story. In all, this has been a fun series for me to read thus far, though I will admit, I liked the first book in the series better than this one. I'm still looking forward to seeing how it plays out to its conclusion over the next three installments.

So, why not a great one? Well, firstly it is obviously the middle book in (at least?) a trilogy as you will see by the ending, but that's OK. I do, however, look forward somewhat to what I hope will be the finale! Any longer and we will be approaching an "exploitation" scenario! Firstly, some kudos! It was a nice touch by Mr. Archer for naming a character in the book, after presumably a friend who passed away, and a good guy at that and that's all I'll say. Secondly the book is highly readable, and like other Archer books, one that is hard to put down for mundane stuff like eating and sleeping! However, it does have some relatively big faults! I was somewhat disappointed that 2 of the main characters in the book (I'll not tell you who they are so as not to be a spoiler; you can work it out for yourself) are IMO "short changed" in that one of them literally disappears for 4 years, out of a 6 1/2 year time span for the book, and the other for three, with only a brief explanation over their "missing" years before they appear again, which I found to be very annoying. They disappear for years then pop up for the last few chapters, frankly IMO just to "whet your appetite" for the last book. It seemed to me this was also to keep the book to a "short" 339 pages which is also an annoyance, when you consider the 500-700 page length of most of Mr. Archer's other books! I also dislike this trend among authors of taking a good sized novel and adding a middle book as a "filler" to create a trilogy to extend/increase their revenues and Mr. Archer does that here, and as I said before, this novel is just a bridge to a final one! I find this crassly exploitive of reader's loyalties! At least with an author like Bernard Cornwell, and, for example his series like the "Saxon Stories" and the "Grail Quest", you know upfront that there are more books coming in the series but each one is a separate novel in itself with a hard and satisfying ending that still leaves you really wanting the next chapter/book in the series! At least Mr. Archer, so far, writes all the books himself, unlike other authors, such as James Patterson, who puts his name to some of his co-authored books that I believe are largely written by other authors, who quite frankly would have a hard time getting their ideas published, another pet peeve of mine. So overall a decent "bridging" book and read but an expensive one (for its length/plot), but hopefully the final one will be much, much better. I think 3 stars is a very fair rating for this book, at best!

He really knows how to make the reader feel a part of the actions. I am a devoted fan and would recommend this series to anyone who loves a good plot as I am reading the entire series for the second time.

In the glut of indie mystery serials, and vampire romantic stuff that seems to dominate efiction these days, there are still a few writers producing what I like to call epic scale 'yarns'. Archer is one of them. I have read his stuff for decades now, and although he has a formula that he sticks pretty closely to, you dont tire of it because of his skill at story telling. This is the second in the 'Clifton' series and follows the events of the first book. It however stands on its own as Archer provides plenty of backstory so you arent wondering why the characters act the way they do. In this one Harry has assumed the identity of a fallen comrade who is accused of murdering his brother. He is sent prison and the characters- Emma, and family arre left to believe him dead. Emma slowly pieces together that his may not be the case and comes to America in search of him. Plucky characters, and a compelling story line -multiple storylines actually as we follow a number of characters Harry, Giles, and Emma primarily- skillfully woven together, are the strengths here. A great read.