Robert Goddard - Name to a Face

Review by Brian Lowen on show 10th Sept

Tim Harding is a recent widower who has moved to Monaco to make a fresh start in his life and has set up a reasonably successful landscaping and gardening business.

One of his main clients is a rich tax exile friend, Barney Tozer, with whose wife, Carol, he is having an illicit affair.

When Tim agrees to do his friend a favour by representing him at a public auction in Penzance, he is unaware of the secrets that the ring he has been sent to buy relates to three widely separated events: the loss of HMS Association with all hands off Scilly in 1707; an unsolved murder in Penzance thirty years later; and the seemingly accidental drowning of an attractive young journalist diving on the Association wreck site in 1999. Very soon he discovers that by taking on this apparently simple task he has allowed himself to be dragged into a web of conspiracies.

The ring he has been sent to buy is thought to be the one stolen from the finger of Sir Cloudsly Shovel when his body was washed up on Porth Hellick beach, but it is stolen before the auction and instead of just going home like any normal person would do he decides to try and discover the ring’s true origins.
Close to the heart of the mystery stands a young woman whom Harding is certain he recognizes, even though they have never met before, but finds he is falling in love with. His life begins to unravel around him as he goes in search of her identity

The plot thickens and gets very complicated as he travels between St Marys on Scilly, Dulwich in London and Munich in Germany before the dramatic conclusion back in Monaco.

I think the story would get rather boring were it not for the local interest as he visits Scilly and Penzance Mount Prospect, Tesco’s, Estate next to heliport, etc.
One glaring mistake in the book comes during the description of the drowning of the journalist as she dives on the wreck of the Association and her dive equipment becomes snagged as she enters the wreck. I think we all know that all that is left of the wreck is just a few cannon and other artefacts strewn across the ocean floor – there is nothing left of the wooden ship for her to enter.

Still, an enjoyable read with a rather predictable ending..