Product Description

This work presents the sequence of extraordinary events over the past 300 years. It is a chain of intrigue, deceit, greed and murder. It covers: the loss of H.M.S. Association with all hands in 1707; an admiralty clerk's secret mission thirty years after; a fatal accident during a dive to the wreck in 1996; and an expatriate's reluctant return home ten years later. The simple task he has come to accomplish, shown to be anything but. A woman he recognises but cannot identify. A conspiracy of circumstances that is about to unravel his life. And with it, the past.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #123108 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 369 pages

Daily Mirror
Mysterious, dramatic, intricate, fascinating and unputdownable...The crime writers' crime writer

Guardian
An absorbing read...Both an excellent introduction to his work and a treat for diehard fans

From the Back Cover
A centuries old mystery is about to unravel…

When Tim Harding agrees to do a favour for a friend by bidding on his behalf for an antique ring at auction, little does he know of the secrets that tie the ring to three tragedies: the sinking of HMS Association off Scilly in 1707, a murder in Penzance thirty years later and the drowning of a journalist diving at the Association wreck site in 1999.

But the ring is stolen before it can be sold, and a shocking murder follows. Harding is quickly drawn into a web of conspiracies surrounding the ring’s origins and finds, close to the heart of the mystery, a young woman he is certain he recognizes, even though they have never met. As he goes in search of her identity, his life begins to fall apart. Somewhere, a perilous truth awaits him, coupled with a terrible realization: those who uncover that truth are not allowed to live…

Robert Goddard is:

‘The master of the clever twist’
Sunday Telegraph

‘Second to none when it comes to duplicity and intrigue…A master of manipulation’
Daily Mail

‘One of Britain's finest thriller writers’
Time Out

Customer Reviews

The book what he wrote
What has happened to Robert Goddard's excellent mystery novels. The first seven of them were tour de force in the Hitchcock and Daphne du Maurier vein, but now they have become replicas of "the play what I wrote in 20 minutes" by the late Ernie Wise (On the Morecambe and Wise show 1960s/1980s for those younger than 20)

The plots are thin, all very similar, and don't progress very quickly because the main characters spend most of the book charging up and down the countryside by train in pursuit of red herrings. British Rail and mobile phones figure larger than the story line in the present day novels, and if the setting is historical, they tear around Europe in coach and horses.

I haven't bothered to read Found Wanting because Name to a Face was so boring. I just skipped the pages to see who done it at the end, and at the end I wasn't much wiser. If he can't do better than this, he should give up writing altogether.

An old-fashioned whodunnit
This is the first Robert Goddard book I have read, though I have several others awaiting their turn. Whether this is, therefore, worse than the earlier ones I have no idea.

However, I did enjoy it. I'd say it was a typically old-fashioned English whodunnit. Plenty of clues, though not for Tim Harding who seems to gather his wits as the story unfolds. The reader is left in the dark as to exactly why all this is happening and it's not until nearing the end that the pieces fall into place.

Whether an old ossary box purported to contain the remains of King Edward II is reason enough to cause a lengthening list of dead bodies is not really the point. If you go along with the story, you'll move around Europe, flit back to Penzance and London and decide early on that the love interest will blossom in accordance with good old British traditions.

Now I've read this book, I think I know what to expect from the earlier ones, so I'll be picking up the next fairly soon.

Goddard is getting tired
I have enjoyed many of Robert Goddard's books, with their many unexpected twists and turns, but his writing has now got to the stage where I know what to expect. I persevered with this story, but had it been a TV film, I would have been out of my seat and off to bed half way through.

However, compared to a lot of the books in this genre, Goddard is still up there with the best. Perhaps it is unfair of me to make the comparison with his previous works, as those were all so good.

A landscape gardener on the Côte d'Azur is asked by one of his clients to go to Cornwall and bid for a family heirloom which is up for auction following the death of his (the client's) uncle. From that point, mystery, intrigue and deception unravel in typical Goddard style. The historical backdrop adds a lot of colour to the story, which never approaches believable. Uncharacteristically, many of the twists and turns are either too predictable or just too far-fetched.

An enjoyable enough book, if you can't find anything better to read on your holiday.