From the internationally bestselling author Jeffrey Archer comes Only Time Will Tell, the first in the ambitious Clifton Chronicles series that tells the story of one family across generations, across oceans, from heartbreak to triumph. 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 engrossing 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.

ジェフリー・アーチャーが描く本作の真髄は、運命という奔流に翻弄されながらも自らの光を掴み取ろうとする、人間の強靭な生命力にあります。単なる出生の秘密に留まらず、港湾地区から上流社会へと駆け上がるハリーの軌跡は、階級の壁を越えるカタルシスと、自己の根源を問う文学的な深みに満ちています。 同一の時間を多角的な視点で照らし出す重層的な構成は、読者を物語の核心へと鮮やかに誘います。真実が剥き出しになる瞬間の緊迫感と、激動の時代を背景にした圧倒的な疾走感は、魂を揺さぶらずにはおきません。一族の壮大な旅路の幕開けとして、これほどまでに次の一頁を熱望させる傑作は他にないでしょう。