Ambitious and addictive, Only Time Will Tell is the first novel in Jeffrey Archer's The Clifton Chronicles, beginning the epic tale of Harry Clifton, a working-class boy from the docks of Bristol.

Ambitious and addictive, Only Time Will Tell is the first novel in Jeffrey Archer's The Clifton Chronicles, beginning the epic tale of Harry Clifton, a working-class boy from the docks of Bristol.

It is 1920, and against the backdrop of a world ravaged by conflict, Harry's story begins with the words 'I was told that my father was killed in the war'. Harry's existence is defined by the death of his father and he seems destined to a life on the docks until a remarkable gift wins him a scholarship to an exclusive boys school and entry into a world he could never have envisaged.

Over the course of twenty years, as the Second World War and the fight against Hitler draws nearer, Harry will learn the awful truth about his father's death and of his own connections to a powerful shipping family, the Barringtons. And in doing so, he will change his destiny forever . . .