Kirkus Review
The fourth volume of Archer's (Best Kept Secret, 2013, etc.) Clifton Chronicles finds the Barrington-Clifton family ensnared in financial conspiracies over a make-or-break Barrington Shipping project. As Archer covers the family drama from 1957 to '64, Harry Cliftona married-into-money war hero and best-selling crime writeris relegated to supporting player while his wife, Emma Barrington Clifton, steps to center stage. Emma becomes chairman of her family shipping company when the former leader's pet projectthe construction of a luxury linerruns aground; it was sabotaged during construction in Belfast by family enemy and Nazi-sympathizing Argentinian gangster Don Pedro Martinez in alliance with the IRA. Martinez hates the Barrington-Cliftons since they disrupted his plans to dispose of millions in Nazi counterfeit money, as recounted in Volume 3. Here, in the prologue, it's revealed that Martinez's attempt to kill Sebastian Clifton, Harry and Emma's son, in revenge for that loss resulted in the death of his own son. As Emma assumes leadership of Barrington Shipping, Martinez secures a significant stake and begins a scheme to sink the company. A minor storyline follows Sir Giles, Emma's brother, and his Labor Party political ambitions. Archer introduces two new supporting players: Cedric Hardcastle, a banker who takes a shine to Sebastian, and Robert"No one calls me Mr. Bingham except the taxman"Bingham, a heart-of-gold fish pastemanufacturing millionaire. Hardcastle and Bingham join a complex scheme to manipulate the Barrington stock price in order to bankrupt the Argentinian. Archer cranks up the melodrama with an unexpected suicide and shows an insider's flare for great food, wine, art and architecture. It's only Sebastian who's the subject of any character development, growing from indifferent student to Hardcastle's trusted assistant, all while meeting an ambassador's daughter who becomes his bride-to-be. Archer's unremarkable prose but tight plotting make for a page-turning rich man's soap opera. He concludes with a Perils of Pauline supercliffhanger certain to frustrateand create clamor for Clifton-Barrington No. 5. Lightweight, entertaining beach reading.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The Clifton Chronicles' fourth volume takes the saga from the late 1950s to the mid-'60s. The book begins with a shocker: Harry and Emma's son, Sebastian, is nearly killed in an automobile accident; his friend Bruno does die. It seems Sebastian was the intended target, and Bruno's father, Don Pedro Martinez, who has a long and contentious history with the Cliftons (and who didn't know his own son was in the car), is the likely culprit. If you don't know who any of these people are, you may want to start at the saga's beginning, 2011's Only Time Will Tell, because this is an epic-size family drama, operatic in scope. This fourth book focuses on upheavals inside the Barrington Shipping Company: mystery-novelist Harry Clifton's wife, Emma, is descended from the company's founder and wants to take over as company chairman, but Don Pedro, with a seething hatred of the Barringtons, has his own plans for the suddenly vacant chairman's seat. As with the previous volumes in the series, there are myriad subplots winding their way through the book: Harry and Emma's daughter is engaged, for example, but there are those who aren't so thrilled about that, and a new member of the Barrington company's upper echelon is a fellow whose agenda is a troubling mystery. Reaction to the Clifton Chronicles has not been unanimously positive Archer has his detractors but if you like multivolume family sagas, it would be hard to find a contemporary example as ambitious and entertaining as this one.--Pitt, David Copyright 2014 Booklist
