Only Time Will Tell

Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer The epic tale of
Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920 with the words “I was
told that my father was killed in the war.” A dock worker
in Bristol Harry never knew his father but he learns about
life on the docks from his uncle who expects Harry to join
him at the shipyard once he’s left school. But then an
unexpected gift wins him a scholarship to an exclusive
boys’ school and his life will never be the same again. As
he enters into adulthood Harry finally learns how his
father really died but the awful truth only leads him to
question was he even his father? Is he the son of Arthur
Clifton a stevedore who spent his whole life on the docks
or the firstborn son of a scion of West Country society
whose family owns a shipping line? This introductory novel
in Archer’s ambitious series The Clifton Chronicles
includes a cast of colorful characters and takes us from
the ravages of the Great War to the outbreak of the Second
World War when Harry must decide whether to take up a
place at Oxford or join the navy and go to war with
Hitler’s Germany. From the docks of working-class England
to the bustling streets of 1940 New York City Only Time
Will Tell takes readers on a journey through to future
volumes which will bring to life one hundred years of
recent history to reveal a family story that neither the
reader nor Harry Clifton himself could ever have imagined.