I read this book in September of 1987. If you look at Amazon today, it is still being read and reviewed by people who enjoyed it as much as I did. This feels unusual for a writer not as well known as a Sue Grafton or Sara Paretski. It was a first novel for Goddard and became an instant best seller.
It's the story of a contemporary man, who's had a bad run of luck, and is hired to look into an MP from 1910 who was ruined by scandal. This was a real page turned that also managed to create the era when women in the UK were fighting for the right to vote. His writing was good and you never felt like you were wasting your time with his books. The book was first published in January 1986. Goddard went on to write other books, whose titles are vaguely familiar but this is the one I remember most.
4 comments:
This does sound excellent, Patti. And I do like novels that give the reader a sense of history, along with telling a story.
Yes, Margot, a lot of Goddard's books are like that, starting in contemporary times and dealing with things in the past, like the Spanish Civil War.
At one point, I bought a bunch of his books in paperback in England, and I sold several over the years, on my lists and at conventions. I'm pretty sure I still have several unread on the shelf at home. I'd forgotten that this was his first.
He wrote three books about failed businessman Harry Barnett, starting with INTO THE BLUE. He is house sitting for a rich friend on Rhodes, and the #1 suspect when a woman disappears from the house. It was made into a not very good TV film starring John Thaw. I know Goddard hated it.
Another writer I had every intention of reading but never got around to it.
I read PAST CARING long ago and have similar feelings about it that you have Patti. The secrets of the Past always intrigue me.
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