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