Harry S. Chou, on the Large Print Reviews website, which reviews large-print editions of books, likes the whole Clifton Chronicle series, saying, “I think that The Clifton Chronicles series by is unique among long running fiction series, because it is only getting better with each new volume!”

I’d agree.

The last 2 books in the series are at least as compelling as any of the rest.

Clifton Chronicles:

• Only Time Will Tell (2011)
• The Sins of the Father (2012)
• Best Kept Secret (2013)
• Be Careful What You Wish For (2014)
• Mightier Than the Sword (2015)
• Cometh The Hour (2016)
• This Was a Man (2016)

Cometh the Hour is the sixth novel in Jeffrey Archer‘s Clifton Chronicles. This series follows the events of the fictitious Clifton and Barrington families, starting in the 1920s.

Cometh the Hour opens with the reading of the suicide note of Alex Fisher, MP. This note has potentially devastating consequences for Harry and Emma Clifton, Sir Giles Barrington and Lady Virginia Fenwick.

Sir Giles must decide whether to divulge the contents of the note to the press. If he does so it could ruin his political career. He also is considering to end this career to try to rescue a lady he met and loves (Karin) who is in East Germany and barred by that government from emigrating to England. He also must consider whether Karin loves him or whether she is a spy for the Russians.

Lady Virginia, the ex-wife of Sir Giles, is facing bankruptcy because she does not know how to wisely manage her money. She seems certain to lose about everything until she is introduced to a wealthy, but gullible, man from Louisiana, Cyrus T. Grant III. Lady Virginia cooks up a scheme to force Grant to pay her a generous monthly sum for years to come.

Sebastian Clifton is now the Chief Executive of Farthings Bank and because he lost his fiancée years before is now a workaholic.

He falls for Priya, a beautiful Indian girl. But her parents have already chosen her future husband and she has no say in the matter. Sebastian also makes contact with his fiancé and their daughter to see whether the old relationship can be patched up.

Sebastian’s ruthless enemies Adrian Sloane and Desmond Mellor are still plotting to take over Farthings and will stop at nothing, legal or otherwise, to achieve their goal.

Harry Clifton, now in his mid-50s, has been working to get Anatoly Babakov, who wrote an unauthorized account of Joseph Stalin, released from a gulag in Siberia and allowed to travel to New York, where his wife had lived for many years following his imprisonment.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Indecent Exposure (2017) is another bit of a soap opera about the rich and famous.

You have to like Stone Barrington, but wonder HOW he keeps getting himself in so much trouble.

This is another rollicking, fast-paced read — that you can immediately forget once finished.

I used it to get to sleep at night. 😀

I never got hooked on her (many) Temperance Brennan Books.

BUT gave it another try.

I’m still not convinced. Reichs writes in an interesting, unusual style.

But the plot of this one was not convincing. The killer simply surprising. There was no ah ha twist to the story.

Fire and Bones (2024) by Kathy Reichs is 23rd in the series.

… forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan finds herself at the center of a Washington, DC, arson investigation with deepening levels of mystery and, ultimately, violence. …

The devastated building is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful past and present, and when Tempe delves into the property’s history, she becomes suspicious about the ownership.

The pieces start falling into place strangely and quickly, and, sensing a good story, Tempe teams with a new ally, telejournalist Ivy Doyle.

Soon the duo learns that back in the 1930s and ’40s the home was the hangout of a group of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang.

While interesting, this fact seems irrelevant—until the son of a Foggy Bottom gang member is shot dead at his home in an affluent part of the district. Coincidence? Targeted attack? …

Mixed feelings.

The Night Circus (2011) is a phantasmagorical fairy tale set near an ahistorical Victorian London in a wandering, magical circus that only opens at night and closes at dawn.

Called Le Cirque des Rêves (The Circus of Dreams) …

Well written. But what is it?

Magic realism?

A romance novel?

We are supposed to get interested in some sort of contest between two talented people: Celia Bowen and Marco Alisdair.

I couldn’t get into it. And neither could either of the two.

It’s more of an ongoing history of a unique circus.

Mixed feelings.

Among the Wicked (2016) is very popular with fans. And was quite well reviewed.

I found it to be poorly written. Repeating points unnecessarily, for example. A pet peeve of mine.

Pacing too slow.

But the plot is interesting.

Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is called upon by the sheriff’s department in rural, upstate New York to assist on a developing situation that involves a reclusive Amish settlement and the death of a young girl.

Unable to penetrate the wall of silence between the Amish and “English” communities, the sheriff asks Kate to travel to New York, pose as an Amish woman, and infiltrate the community. …

Kate infiltrates the community and goes deep under cover. In the coming days, she unearths a world built on secrets, a series of shocking crimes, and herself, alone… trapped in a fight for her life.