Log in with Facebook 
If there is one lesson to be learned from this novel it is that no matter how badly things look - be it war, prison, fraud, or being a prisoner of war - as long as you are rich or have rich friends you'll be fine. Oh, and having a peerage title is kinda inherent in the rich part.Sins of the Father follows several characters through the events in and around the second world war. Harry Clifton was going to marry Emma Barrington, and despite Emma being pregnant, decides to join the navy after finding out that she could be his sister. Harry trades identities with Tom Bradshaw because reasons, which lands him in jail...... Okay, so this is just one long tale of misfortune disguised as a plot: you get the idea.
Archer deftly weaves his way across multiple time periods with multiple characters suffering multiple hardships. But I found that I was only really interested in two characters, Maisy Clifton (Harry's mother) and Emma Barrington. This may have been because these were the strong willed characters who were grabbing circumstances by the horns and winning the tussle (or at least fighting the good fight). Archer takes several potshots at the issue of class and the peer system in the UK, the ones that work hard are rewarded, the ones that just sit back and inherit ultimately lose (is that a spoiler alert?). But he still manages to have the rich and peerage-d folk avoid death when their less fortunate and not rich commoner friends aren't so lucky.
This was an engaging read but was let down by the ending. I'll quite happily ignore the idea of the House of Lords having nothing better to do than spending an entire day debating who gets to inherit what, rather than say running the country as per the job description. I'll even allow the speeches being included as part of the story. But I won't abide Archer leaving this plot point unresolved until the next novel. That's a deduction of one star from the rating right there.
