This is the 5th Part
of Clifton Chronicles, by the internationally acclaimed thriller novelist and
bestselling author, Jeffrey Archer. As I hadn’t read the earlier parts, the
dramatic opening of the novel with an IRA bomb exploding during the MV
Buckingham’s maiden voyage across the Atlantic really confused me.
The novel revolves round
1. Harry
Clifton, the newly elected president of English PEN who launches a campaign for
the release of a fellow author Anatoly Babakov, who is imprisoned in Siberia
for a writing a book called “Uncle Joe”, the release of which is feared to seriously
damage the iconic image of Stalin.
2. Emma,
wife of Harry Clifton, the chairman of Barrington Shipping that owns MV
Buckingham.
3. Sir
Giles Barrington, the brother of Emma, a minister of the British Crown, whose
diplomatic mission to Berlin didn’t end as a success and his political career is
being challenged by his old adversary, Major Alex Fisher.
4. Lady
Virginia Fenwick, the former wife of Sir Giles Barrington, never giving up her
efforts to bring down Emma from her position as Chairman of Barrington Shipping.
5. Sebastian,
the son of Emma and Harry, making a name for himself in banking and his beta
noire , Adrian Sloane who wouldn’t stop at anything, to ruin Sebastian. There is
a minor plot about the American Samantha with whom Sebastian was in love; but Samantha
walks out because she doesn’t consider Sebastian to be a man of his words.
The novel plays around the on and off the courtroom battles between Emma and Lady Virginia to take control of the Board of Barrington Shipping and the battle between Adrian Sloane and Sebastian to control the bank that was taken over by Adrian Sloane using cruel and dubious means, even while Harry tries to get Babkov released from the prison. The novel takes a reader to London, Bristol, New York, and Berlin, before the collapse of the German Wall.
The first several pages of the novel appeared dragging
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