Robert Goddard - Found Wanting

reviewed by Barbara Simpson 26th Feb 09
As an avid reader of Robert Goddard's books, I was delighted to pick up his new novel. For anyone who hasn't read his work, Robert Goddard is a master of thriller-writing. His plots are extraordinarily convouted, drawing the reader further & further into the story - usually based around someone who is an unwitting pawn in an horrific game of chess.
Found Wanting begins in the usual way - Richard Eusden, a civil servant, is having coffee on his way to work when his ex-wife turns up with a message from a childhood frined now dying. In a matter of a few hours, Richard is on his way to Brussels to collect a briefcase but of course, nothing can ever be that straightforward and soon he is criss-crossing Europ from Belgium to Germany to Denmark, before ending up in Finland for the culmination of the story. Each part of his journey puts him in more danger and the descriptions of northern Europe in the depths of winter add to the bleakness of the tale, involving as it does the deaths of the Russian Royal Family in 1917, the rumours that Princess Anastasia escaped from the massacre, the whereabouts of the Tsar's lost fortune and the overwhelming desire of a reclusive, immendsely powerful and ruthless Finnish businessman to have his questions answered.
The research is meticulous, the writing excellent but I have to admit that by the end I felt bogged down and didn't really care one way or the other - too many Scandinavian and Russian names and one or two really credibility stretching coincidences.
This is very disappointing as most of Robert Goddard's books are quite brilliant, although his previous novel 'Name to a Face' also left me feeling rather let down - a double disappointment as that one concerned the legend of Sir Cloudisly Shovell's ring and was partly set in Scilly.
To sum up it lived up to its title!

Robert Goddard – LONG TIME COMING

REVIEW BY BABS SIMPSON ON SHOW 17TH JUNE
I’VE BEEN RATHER DISAPPOINTED BY ROBERT GODDARD’S LAST COUPLE OF BOOKS – PREDICTABLE AND NOT NEARLY AS EXCITING AS THEY SHOULD BE. HOWEVER, I’M VERY PLEASE TO SAY THAT THIS BOOK IS ANOTHER WINNER.
THE HERO IS STEPHEN SWAN WHO RETURNS FROM WORKING IN THE USA TO GO TO PAIGNTON TO SEE HIS MOTHER. TO HIS TOTAL AMAZEMENT HIS UNCLE, ELDRITCH, WHO HE HAS ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD TO BE DEAD, IS THERE AND THERE THE STORY BEGINS. ELDRITCH HAS BEEN LANGUISHING IN AN IRISH JAIL FOR 36YRS AND THERE IS NO RECORD F HIS CRIME, BUT GRADUALLY AND VERY TORTUOUSLY, THE TALE UNFOLDS FROM DUBLIN DURING THE WAR TO LONDON TO ANTWERP AND SLOWLY WE BEGIN TO FIND OUT THE REASON FOR HIS LONG INCARCERATION.
THE SECRET SERVICE’S WARTIME INVOLVEMENT CARRIES ON AND THE STORY, ALTHOUGH EXTRAORDINARY, IS VERY PLAUSIBLE – EVERYTHING IS EXPLAINED AND ALL LOOSE ENDS TIED UP (BUT IF THAT MAKES THE TALE SOUND SIMPLE, BELIEVE ME IT ISN’T!)
THIS IS A BOOK THAT I AM SURE WILL APPEAL TO ALL ROBERT GODDARD’S MANY FANS – THE PLOTTING IS ALMOST BREATHTAKING, THE CHARACTERS SYMPATHETIC – EVEN SCHEMING UNCLE ELDRITCH -AND THE VARIOUS LOCATIONS WELL DESCRIBED.
IT’S A GREAT READ AND I’M PLEASED TO GIVE IT A WHOLE-HEARTED RECOMMENDATION.

REVIEW BY BABS

Robert Goddard - Fault Line

review by Babs Simpson on show 12th April 2012
As I have always enjoyed Robert Goddards books very much I am delighted to say that Fault Line is definitely up to his always high standard. As usual, the plot unfolds inexorably towards a totally unexpected and satisfactory conclusion, full of twists, turns and tragedies on the way.
The hero, Jonathan Kellaway, takes a holiday job with a small china clay mining company in St Austell in 1968. He quickly becomes involved with members of the family who own the company and spends an idyllic holiday at their villa on Capri. Many undercurrents gradually emerge, baffling and tragic and jonathan after university, is persuaded to work full time in the china Clay industry.
As he rises higher in the company, he begins to question motives and actions until in 2010, an academic is employed to write a history of the company from its earliest days. She soon realises that papers are missing from several years in the 1960s and it is the uncovering of the secrets they contain that provides the denouement.
Robert Goddard always fills me with admiration. He writes in a totally satisfactory, realistic style and plots his novels quite brilliantly so that the reader is drawn in from the outset and gripped from start to finish. Fault Line is especially fascinating with its almost local interest - St Austell is not far away, dealing with an industry we are all aware of from local TV news and papers.
Do read it. It is very satisfying, exciting and worthwhile.

Robert Goddard - Found Wanting

review by showhost
I was really looking forward to another of Robert Goddard as I had enjoyed Caught by the Light and his latest Fault Line. However, this book left me disappointed and lived up to its title.
One thing that really irritated me was the way he switched so often from first name to surname within a few lines and with the same person uttering it. It was hard enough to keep up with all the characters, especially the europena named ones, without changing from first to surname at the drop of a dot.
I kept with it, although it struggled to keep my attention, until the bitter end and I have to say that after page 290 it got a lot more interesting.
So whats the book about? Two childhood friends who grew up on the Isle of Wight and now grown up and gone their separate ways. One, Richard Eusden, works for the foreign office the other Marty, is dying of cancer. Out of the blue Richard is asked to take a briefcase which belonged to Marys grandfather, to Sweden or Copenhagen and then pick up money for it.
Course things don't go to plan. Marty ends up dead, Richard has several attempts on his life. Whats in the case? Maybe something that can prove that Anastasia, the Tzars daughter, escaped from the murder of the family in the revolution and is actually or was alive and kicking.
Its a complicated convoluted plot with many, many characters and definitely not one of Robert Goddards best.

Robert Goddard – Sight Unseen

review by showhost 3rd July 2012

Thank goodness, another good book from Robert Goddard. Always more than just a crime book, it was an interesting, intriguing mystery thriller which kept me wanting more.
The story is set around Avebury, near Stonehenge. Its July 1981, David Umber is sat outside the quiet country pub waiting for a man to deliver some antique books he is interested in. He idly watches a young woman across the road on the field with three young children, the two older children have run ahead while the young toddler is slowly catching up. Behind the toddler a man is running towards them. In a split second he has grabbed the toddler, ran towards the road where a white van screeches to a halt while he jumps in with the child. The young woman cries out and runs after him. The older child, Miranda, sees what has happened and runs out in the road to stop the van. With a sickening thump the van carries on.

23 years later David Umber is working in Prague conducting guided tours for the "Jolly Brolly" company, when a blast from the past catches up with him, ex-inspector Sharp. The murder and abduction from 23 years ago were never really solved, even though a convicted paedophile admitted to killing the abducted girl whose body was never found. He is persuaded to go back to England as someone has sent a cryptic message to Sharp the then head of the police investigation,. The cryptic message is to do with the books Umber was working on ‘Janius’ and within the books holds a clue to the mystery surrounding those terrible events.
The woman who was with the children that day, later became Umbers wife. The tragedy eventually drove her to suicide. But as their unofficial investigation opens old wounds and causes more suffering and death, Umber begins to wonder about his wifes death. Was it really suicide?
I did enjoyed the book but I found the plot around Junius although interesting in parts, rather too complicated and speed read a couple of paragraphs towards the end about it. Also, couldn't quite see why it fitted into the ending of the plot?

show on 10th Sept 2009

Couldn't wait to read out my email reply from Simon Kernick on the show today, what a coup! I had written to say I had enjoyed his 'high octane' book and also asked him what he liked to read himself. I also explained that I presented the bookshow on Radio Scilly. I was impressed that he took the time to reply. This was his reply:

'Hi Linda
thanks a million for the kind words about RELENTLESS. My latest book is TARGET, which personally I think is better, but then I guess I would say that.
I tend to read crime and favourite authors include HARLAN COBEN, MICHAEL CONNELLY and LEE CHILD.
Thanks too for the review.

Simon'

Guests on show this week, were Malcolm Martland nice to have you back again Malcolm and Brian Lowen, Books being reviewed: The Broken Window - Jeffrey Deaver, London Bridges by James Patterson, Name to a Face by Robert Goddard - And
A Most Wanted Man - John Le Carré

The Robert Goddard book has references to Scilly and in fact the book cover I saw on line had a picture of 'Camel Rock' on the front (for those of you who do not know Scilly, Camel Rock is a rock formation resembling a camel and where there used to be music festivals) whereas Brians copy didn't. Did Brian enjoy it? Has James Patterson finally made a comeback and did Deaver do it for Malcolm? What about Le Carré has he got enough material to keep readers glued? Read the reviews and find out.

I still wonder why they do that - change the cover designs for the same book..?

Robert Goddard - Play to the end

review by showhost:

I was literary restless after reading a good book by andrew taylor and tried to get into a couple of novels before picking this one up.  This one soothed my itchy mind.

I do like Robert goddard and he would be one of my 'take on holiday authors'.

Well known thespian Toby Flood arrives in Brighton for the final week of the play he is main character in - a Joe Orton play.  The night he arrives he is visited by his estranged wife Jenny.  Jenny is engaged to be married once their divorce goes through - Toby is still passionately in love with Jenny and would do anything for her.  Jenny needs his help, she is being stalked but she thinks the stalker is trying to get to Toby through her.  she doesn't want to worry or involve her fiancee Roger Colborn as she feels the stalker isn't interested in him.

Toby offers to help and meets the stalker in the cafe opposite where Jenny has her hat shop.  It becomes all to apparent that the stalker isn't after Toby or his estranged wife but her fiancee Roger.  Toby would obviously like to discredit Roger in the hope of retrieving Jenny and his marriage.

The firm which Rogers family had owned seems to have been negligent to its employees and the use of carciogenic material caused the death of a few and the stalkers dad was one of these employees.  There is a lot more sinister past and danger as Toby delves deeper and can't let go until he has unearthed the truth.

It is an absorbing and interesting read as you would expect from this author.  He works the tale well and keeps you interested without giving too much away in fact in got rather complicated towards the end.

'A thriller in the classic story telling sense with the suspense of a whodunnit' I agree.

I need to find another now to take with me on hols.........

Robert Goddard - Caught in the Light

review by Brian Lowen on show 28th July
On assignment in Vienna, photographer Ian Jarrett falls in love with a woman he meets by chance, Marian Esguard. Back in England, he leaves his wife and goes to meet Marian, intending to run away with her, only for her to vanish from his life as mysteriously as she entered it.

Searching for the woman for whom he has sacrificed everything, Jarrett comes across a Dorset churchyard full of gravestones of dead Esguards. He also meets a psychotherapist, Daphne Sanger. She too is looking for someone: a former client who believes she is the reincarnation of Marian Esguard, who may have invented photography ten years before Fox Talbot in the early 1800s.
But why is Marian Esguard unknown to history?
And who and where is the woman Jarrett met in Vienna?

Jarrett sets out to solve a mystery whose origins lie amid the seemingly magical properties of early photography, but whose answer is most surprising, as the dead bodies pile up.

A really good detailed story of the type one can expect from Robert Goddard, especially interesting to those interested in the early origins of photography. The tension slowly builds up to the dramatic conclusion in the final chapters A lot of names in the story that requires good concentration to keep track of them all, but it does hold the interest of the reader.

Not a happy ending, but probably a more realistic one. Recommended.

Robert Goddard - Closed Circle.

review by showhost Nov 2013.

This was one of my chosen holiday reads and one of my 50p finds on St Agnes.  I have read and enjoyed this author before so was looking forward to this book..
It's 1931 and on board the new, luxurious transatlantic liner Empress of Britain are two English confidence tricksters who are making a speedy departure from the US after a money making scam ended up in disaster and pending prison. 

A chance meeting with Miss Charnwood and her beautiful niece Diana, who is the only heir of the famously wealthy Fabian Charnwood, sets the ball rolling for cross, double cross and treachery.
The two tricksters, Guy and Max, hatch up one of their old schemes, charm the beautiful daughter into an engagement to marry, then allow the father to buy whichever of them off as to stop him marrying his precious daughter.  They are so sure of success they write a pact that who ever wins the beautiful Diana's love will share their fortune with the other.  So the race is on and much to Max's surprise he wins the lady.  The plan works and the father wants to buy Max off but Max hadn't allowed for falling in love or morals. Disaster is round the corner as murder, subterfuge and a dark sinister group of wealthy influential people become involved.  Another ripping good yarn from Goddard. 

I was on the flight home from my hols when I was reading this and a fellow passenger tapped me on the shoulder to say they were reading a book by the same author (into the blue) and how he and his wife both enjoyed Goddard's books!

Robert Goddard - Fault Line

review by showhost
I have just finished this feast of a book. Enjoyable, engrossing and intriguing. I savoured each page, its one of those books you never want to end.
The story fluctuates between the 1960's and the present day but the fluctuations are very easy to keep track of. It is set mainly in St Austell, Cornwall and Capri, Italy.
It follows the fates and fortunes of the Wren family, Cornish China Clay and the merger with American Kaolin.
Jonathan Kellaway who lives and was born in St Austell becomes embroiled in the lives of the Wren family when he is 16 and waiting to go to university. The decision to work for the Wren family and not CCC proves his fate for the rest of his life. His chance meeting with the son and daughter of George Wren brings mystery, hidden secrets murder and love into his life. A life that will forever tied to the company and its directors and family.
As he reaches retirement age he is asked to perform one last favour for the aging managing director. He is asked to find out what happened to the missing documents from late fifties to early sixties about dealings with Wren and CCC. As he begins to unearth the facts he begins to realise how he had been manipulated all those years and how ruthless some people can be to achieve power and success.

It is an absorbing & gripping family saga with suicide, murder and intrigue around everypage. Jonathan is a good solid character and I was with him all the way as his quest took him from Cornwall, to Capri, Naples, London, America and Brazil. My only problem now is finding another book as good to take its place .....

17th June show

Hello and welcome to the bookshow on radio scilly 107.9fm, sponsored by Bourdeaux’s bookshop. We will be looking at whats out there in the book world for all you dads as its Fathers Day this Sunday and what else can you get for dads that’s better than a book..... besides a crate of beer and a seat in front of the telly or a ticket to the world cup….
Guests today are Babs Simpson and Maggie Perkovic. Books being dug up are:
The Burying Beetle by Annn Kelley, Burying the Bones by Hilary Spurling, Long time coming by Robert Goddard and Katherine the Queen by Linda Porter

The Burying Beetle by Ann Kelley - got to say Babs, what a boring book cover – it wouldn’t make me want to pick it up!

Robert Goddard - Closed Circle

reviewed on a recorded show by Brian Lowen for 19th Sept 2013 

An excellent story that holds your attention the whole way through.

The scene is set in the early 1930s and starts as two English confidence tricksters, Guy and Max, are sailing back to Britain aboard the luxury liner, the Empress of Britain. They are making a discrete exit from a little awkwardness they have left behind in America.

A chance meeting on deck brings them a tempting new target in the shape of Miss Charnwood and her niece, the beautiful Diana, only child of the immensely wealthy Fabian Charnwood.

It’s a trick they have pulled before, with some success. Charm the daughter into an engagement to marry, then  get the father to buy you off. They are very confident of success, but have no idea of the terrible consequences of becoming involved with the Charnwood family. They think they are leading the action, but in reality they are pawns in a complicated scheme involving a secret society which was involved with the instigation of the start of the first world war.

The reasons why so many countries got involved in the first world war after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand has always been a bit of a mystery to me.  This book goes some way to

explaining how it happened, but of course, one must remember this is a fictional novel.

R G spins a detailed plot with many twists and turns that keep you guessing until the final outcome. I was still hoping that our hero, Guy Horton, who we follow through the story, was going to get his girl in the end, but whether he does or not you will have to read the book to find out.

Recommended as an enthralling story.

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..

Robert Goddard - Blood count

book review by showhost

Dr Edward Hammond was paid handsomely to perform a liver transplant on Dragan Gazi, a Serbian gangster in former Yugoslavia, in the 1990's.  The operation 13 yrs ago saved Gazi's life but he went on to kill thousands more people.  A fact unknown to Edward Hammond at the time.

Edward Hammonds wife was killed in the 1990's but he was unaware that his surgery all those years ago was behind it.

Edward Hammond is contacted by Gazi's daughter.  Gazi is standing trial in the Hague for all his war crimes in the Balkan.  His daughter Ingrid, wants Dr Hammond to find/contact her fathers accountant , Marco Piravani, and persuade him to transfer the money her father has stashed into her name.  If he doesn't comply they will tell his daughter that it was he, Dr Hammond, who arranged for his estranged wife to be murdered as a bonus pay off for the operation, because it would seem, that maybe Gazi did have his wife murdered but he can't prove it.

So, the action takes place in and around Bosnia/Belgrade and the Hague with lots of cross & double crosses as Dr Hammond chases the elusive Marco Piravani and is duped on many occasions.

Good book but found it annoying as to how witless the doctor was - stupid boy!  For me, not his best, I felt he strung it out a little too far.  Also, I fear the plots are becoming a little too similar all be it in different locations.

Robert Goddard - Out of the Sun

Review by Brian Lowen on show 10th March
The hero of our story is Harry Barnet – a middle-aged failure, leading a boring life in the shadow of a former disgrace, working part-time at a petrol service station and living in digs with a kindly old landlady in Kensal Green, London.

Then Harry gets an anonymous message and is shocked to learn that he has a son – David Venning, a brilliant mathematician, now languishing in hospital in a diabetic coma. And this is the smallest of the mysteries he is about to encounter.

David’s condition is attributed to an accident or suicide attempt, but Harry discovers that his mathematical notebooks are missing from the hotel room where he was discovered and two other scientists employed by the same American forecasting institute have died in suspicious circumstances. Driven on by the slim hope of saving the son he never knew he had, Harry goes in search of the truth and finds himself entangled in several different kinds of conspiracy – none of which he ought to stand the slightest chance of defeating.

His journey starts in Copenhagen and then moves to America as he follows the clues left by the previous employees of Globescope, a forecasting institute in Washington DC, run by Byron Lazenby.
We are taken into the mysterious realms of hyper dimensional science – an advanced form of mathematics – but thankfully not to deeply, as Harry struggles to uncover the perplexing mysteries surrounding his son’s demise.

A good story – what I would describe as a mild thriller, but very interesting as the plot gradually evolves with several twists at the end. I found the large number of different names somewhat confusing but you can manage to sort things out. A good complicated story that is quite easy to follow. You think that it is finished when about three-quarters of the way through the book but then it suddenly bursts into life again.

A great read which I can thoroughly recommend.
review by Brian

Robert Goddard - Caught in the Light

review by showhost
this book was published in 1998. I had read one by this author before but I can't remember what it was called or if I liked it or not. This was a complicated, first class, suspense novel.
Ian is married with a young teenage daughter. He is a photographer and doing a shoot in Vienna. Into the frame appears an attractive, young lady in a red coat, who is furious about him taking her picture. An affair ensues over the next few days. Ian falls in love and goes home to UK to tell his wife their marriage is over.
Ian waits for his lover, Marion, in England at their arranged rendezvous but she never shows. He worries that her jealous husband may have hurt her. He sets out to find her but the mysterious Marion, never existed.
His search takes him to a psychotherapist who was seeing a lady who fits Marions description. This lady has flashbacks to another era, the 1817's where she is another person, unhappily married to a cruel husband but with her scientific knowledge is one of the pioneers of early photography.
False leads, subterfuge, murder and arranged encounters all lead to Ians downfall and puts his family and associates at risk. The suspense and complicated plot keeps you enthralled and the flashbacks to that bygone era just as enthralling.
Recommended read.

Robert Goddard - Name to a Face

review by showhost March 2014

I saw the picture of the front of this paperback in a charity shop and had to read it - it's a picture of Camel Rock, Porth Hellick.

It's a mystery set around the shipwreck of HMS Association in 1707, the emerald & diamond ring which was cut off the finger of Sir Clowdisley Shovell , a murder 30 years later and the drowning of a journalist diving on the wreck in 1999.

Tim Harding is living & working in Monaco as is Barney Tozer & associates.  Barney Tozer his friend and an ex-Penzance man has asked Tim to go to Penzance to oversee his estranged brother who wants to bid for the emerald & diamond ring, which is being auctioned and which they claim was stolen from their family centuries ago.

The auction is taking place at the house of their estranged uncle in Penzance whom they claim stole it from their father.

While there, Tim befriends the housekeeper Hayley, whose face is familiar to him, and they form an attachment.  Also, while Tim is there he finds out secrets about Barneys past.  Barney was on the dive of the wreck in 1999 when his co-diver Kerry died.  Some say it was an accident and others say Barney murdered her.

When the ring is stolen before the auction Tim starts to ask questions, the questions take him to the Isles of Scilly, London, Germany & back to Penzance. During this time he discovers that it isn't only Barney who is keeping secrets and faces deception & conspiracy everywhere he turns, including Hayley.

Things start to escalate when his friend is murdered and Hayley is blamed for his death.

It's a complicated tale with many characters.

I didn't like this book as much as his others.  I still don't know who killed his friend Barney and I thought the reason for the divers death very weak.  There were perhaps too many things going on which made it very disjointed.  Also, not as tense as his other books