Robert Goddard is a master of the plot twist and a compelling storyteller whose novels weave together elements of mystery, thriller, and historical romance. With a writing career spanning over two decades, his works champion the traditional virtues of pace, plot, and narrative drive. His distinct approach has established him as a prominent voice in contemporary storytelling.
From the author of the BBC 2 Between the Covers hit, The Fine Art of Invisible Detection'The world's greatest storyteller' Guardian'One of the finest crime writers of any generation' Daily Mail'Our finest practitioner of the double-cross plotting' Mick Herron______________________________________Umiko Wada never[Bokinfo].
From the author of the BBC 2 Between the Covers hit, The Fine Art of Invisible Detection 'The world's greatest storyteller' THE GUARDIAN 'One of the finest crime writers of any generation' DAILY MAIL On a stifling afternoon at Police HQ in Algiers, Superintendent Taleb, coasting towards retirement, with not even an air-conditioned office to show for his long years of service, is handed a ticking time bomb of a case which will take him deep into Algeria's troubled past and its fraught relationship with France. To his dismay, he is assigned to work with Agent Hidouchi, an intimidating representative of the country's feared secret service, who makes it clear she intends to call the shots. They are instructed to pursue a former agent, now on the run after twenty years in prison for his part in a high-level corruption scandal. But their search will lead them inexorably towards a greater mystery, surrounding a murder that took place in Paris more than fifty years ago. Uncovering the truth may be his responsibility, but Taleb is well aware that no-one in Algeria wants to be reminded of the dark deeds carried out in the struggle for independence - or in the violence that has racked the nation since. Before long, he will face a choice he has long sought to avoid, between self-preservation and doing the right thing. And, ultimately, the choice may not even be his to make.
The no. 1 ebook from the Sunday Times bestseller 'He's the high priest of plot ... deftly woven, but also beautifully written ... I loved it.' Mel Giedroyc 'One of the finest crime writers of any generation' Daily Mail Umiko Wada has recently had quite enough excitement in her life. With her husband recently murdered and a mother who seems to want her married again before his body is cold, she just wants to keep her head down. As a secretary to a private detective, her life is pleasingly uncomplicated, filled with coffee runs, diary management and paperwork. That is, until her boss takes on a new case. A case which turns out to be dangerous enough to get him killed. A case which means Wada will have to leave Japan for the first time and travel to London. Following the only lead she has, Wada quickly realises that being a detective isn't as easy as the television makes out. And that there's a reason why secrets stay buried for a long time. Because people want them to stay secret. And they're prepared to do very bad things to keep them that way... What readers are saying: ***** 'Guaranteed and satisfying escapism' ***** 'Edge-of-the-seat stuff' ***** 'The master of twists and suspense ... sublime'
His current boss, a shady businessman, is already making serious money out of
Joe's talents and isn't going to let him go without a fight. Because the
battle now isn't just for Joe's mind, it's for Nicole's life.
`Is this his best yet?...Full of sinister menace and propulsive pace with
twisty plotting' Lee Child WHAT REALLY LIES WITHIN? Uninhabited except for
Blake, a young woman of mysterious background, currently acting as
housesitter. Soon people with questionable motives will be asking Blake the
sort of questions she can't - or won't - want to answer.
A thrilling climax to Robert Goddard's bestselling adventure trilogy, The Wide World. July 1919. Ex-flying ace James 'Max' Maxted's attempt to uncover the secret behind the death of his father, Sir Henry Maxted, murdered while serving as an adviser with the British delegation to the Paris peace conference, has seemingly ended in failure -- and his own death. The trail uncovered by him leads to Japan and a mysterious prisoner held by Sir Henry Maxted's old enemy, Count Tomura. Unaware of Max's fate, the team he has recruited to finish the job are already there, where their paths cross that of former German spymaster, Fritz Lemmer, now rebuilding his spy network in the service of a new, more sinister cause. In the days and weeks ahead, the quest Max embarked on in Paris will reach its dizzying end at Tomura's castle in the mountains of Honshu -- and the full truth of what occurred thirty years before will finally be laid bare.
Spring, 1919. James 'Max' Maxted, former Great War flying ace, returns to the trail of murder, treachery and half-buried secrets he set out on in The Ways of the World. He left Paris after avenging the murder of his father, Sir Henry Maxted, a senior member of the British delegation to the post-war peace conference. But he was convinced there was more - much more - to be discovered about what Sir Henry had been trying to accomplish. And he suspected elusive German spymaster Fritz Lemmer knew the truth of it. Now, enlisted under false colours in Lemmer's service but with his loyalty pledged to the British Secret Service, Max sets out on his first - and possibly last - mission for Lemmer. It takes him to the far north of Scotland - to the Orkney Isles, where the German High Seas Fleet has been impounded in Scapa Flow, its fate to be decided at the conference-table in Paris. Max has been sent to recover a document held aboard one of the German ships. What that document contains forces him to break cover sooner than he would have wished and to embark on a desperate race south, towards London, with information that could destroy Lemmer - if Max, as seems unlikely, lives to deliver it...
From the Edgar Award-winning British writer Robert Goddard comes a gripping new trilogy of historical thrillers set in the aftermath of World War I. The story follows James “Max” Maxted, a Royal Flying Corps veteran with a knack for finding trouble. In the spring of 1919, as peace delegates gather in Paris, British diplomat Sir Henry Maxted is tasked with negotiating with the Brazilians over seized ships. However, before a deal can be finalized, Sir Henry is found dead outside a Montparnasse apartment building, apparently having fallen from the roof. His sons, Max and Ashley, arrive in Paris to retrieve the body, only to discover that the French police's explanation is suspect. With the potential fallout from a diplomat's murder threatening the peace conference, few are willing to investigate—except for Max. What starts as a quest for answers about his father's death plunges him into a perilous world of secret alliances and international espionage, where betrayal lurks at every corner. Max must navigate this treacherous landscape, determined to uncover the truth about a father he barely knew, while facing the very real danger that his inquiries could cost him his own life.
Paris, 1919. The aftermath of the Great War. With the fate of the world's nations hanging in the balance, a secret affair ends with the death of a senior British diplomat. As the authorities try to pass it off as a bizarre accident, ex-RFC flying ace, James 'Max' Maxted is convinced otherwise and throws himself headfirst into the dark heart of a seemingly impenetrable mystery - hellbent on uncovering the truth. But with the stakes being so high and friends now indistinguishable from enemies, the only way forward is to keep pushing - until you can see who's pushing back! - Back cover.
"A search for missing documents in an international mining company becomes a voyage into dangerous waters. A dead friend, a lost lover and a clutch of mysteries from Jonathan Kellaway's youth in Cornwall and Italy in the late 1960s come back to haunt him when he is tasked with discovering why there is a gaping hole in his employer's records - and to tempt him with the hope that he may at last learn the truth about the tragedies of those years. It is a truth that has claimed several victims before. If he pursues it hard and long enough, he may only add himself to the list. But pursue it he will, because the truth, he comes to realize, is the secret that has consumed his life. This time he will not stop ... until he has found it"--P. [4].
There's no such thing as easy money. As surgeon Edward Hammond is about to find out. Thirteen years ago he performed a life saving operation on a Serbian gangster, Dragan Gazi. Gazi is now standing trial for war crimes in the international court in The Hague. After his life was saved, his men went on to slaughter thousands in the Balkan civil wars. Now Gazi's family want more from him: in exchange for keeping Hammond's dirty little secret, they want him to find for them the man who holds the key to all the money Gazi squirreled away before he was locked up. But Italian financier, Marco Piravani, doesn't want to be found, not by Hammond, not by anyone. No sooner has Hammond tracked him down, than Piravani has disappeared again. His pursuit will take him first to the Hague, and then to Milan to find the Italian, and then finally back to the scene of his crime, Belgrade, where he must confront the decisions he once so easily took. Only then will he be able to lay the past to rest...
Eldritch Swan is a dead man. Or at least that is what his nephew Stephen has
always been told. Until one day Eldritch walks back into his life after 36
years in an Irish prison. He won't reveal any of the details of his
incarceration, insisting only that he is innocent of any crime. His return
should be of interest to no-one.
The car jolts to a halt at the pavement's edge, the driver waving through the windscreen to attract Richard's attention. He starts with astonishment. The driver is Gemma, his ex-wife. He has not seen or spoken to her for several years. They have, she memorably assured him the last time they met, nothing to say to each other. But something has changed her mind - something urgent ... Immediately Richard is catapulted into a breathless race against time that takes him from London, across northern Europe and into the heart of a mystery that reaches back into history - the fate of Anastasia, youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last of the Romanovs. From that moment, Richard's life will be changed for ever in ways he could never have imagined.
Wanneer een man opdracht heeft een ring op een veiling te kopen, ontmoet hij allerlei mensen die ervan overtuigd zijn dat zijn opdrachtgever een duikster heeft vermoord die het wrak van een bijna driehonderd jaar eerder vergaan schip wilde onderzoeken.
The brain-teasing new thriller from the “master of the clever twist.” A sequence of extraordinary events over the past 300 years provides the links in a chain of intrigue, deceit, greed and murder: The loss of HMS Association with all hands in 1707. An admiralty clerk’s secret mission thirty years afterwards. A fatal accident during a dive to the wreck in 1996. 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 recognizes but cannot identify. It’s a conspiracy of circumstances that is about to unravel his life. And with it, the past.
Harry Barnett thought he had left his military career behind, so he is
startled when two figures from his past turn up on his doorstep after fifty
years. An old friend has organised the reunion to end all reunions: a weekend
in the Scottish castle where the ex-comrades took part in a psychological
experiment many years before.
Kill the Messenger—Tami HoagJace has one last package to deliver but en route to delivering it to a defense attorney he is nearly run down by a car, chased through back alleys, and shot at. Only the instincts acquired while growing up allows him to escape with his life-and with a package someone wants badly enough to kill for.Brandenburg—Henry Porter November 1989. The fall of the Berlin Wall. One man is caught between East and West...Digger—Max AndersonA funny, thoughtful tale of one man's obsession with finding gold amidst crazy miners, forgotten communities, mosquitoes and dust of the Australian outback.Sight Unseen—Robert GoddardIt is a hot summer's day in the tourist village of Avebury. A man sits outside the Red Lion pub, waiting. He sees a woman with three young children, two of them running ahead while their sister dawdles behind. A child's voice catches on the breeze. For want of anything more interesting to do, the man watches. And then it happens.
It Is A Hot Summer S Day In The Tourist Village Of Avebury.A Man Sits Outside The Red Lion Pub, Waiting. He Sees A Woman With Three Young Children, Two Of Them Running Ahead While Their Sister Dawdles Behind. A Child S Voice Catches On The Breeze.For Want Of Anything More Interesting To Do, The Man Watches. He Sees Nothing Sinister Or Threatening. Even When Another Figure Enters His Field Of Vision, He Does Not React. The Figure Is Ordinary - Male, Short-Haired, Stockily Built.But He Is Moving Fast, At A Loping Run.And Then It Happens. In One Swift Movement, The Running Man Grabs The Youngest Child And Carries Her Away. Still The Man Outside The Pub Does Not React. Suddenly, Awhite Transit Van Bursts Into View, Its Engine Racing, Its Rear Door Slamming Shut.The Child And Her Abductor Are Inside. The Child S Sister Rushes Forward. The Man Outside The Pub Jumps Up&The Tragedy Begins At Avebury.But It Does Not End There.
Life becomes dangerous for a touring actor in Brighton when his estranged wife involves him in the investigation of a now-closed plastic factory with a history of health violations.
A terrible secret forces a family into a deadly conflict with an unseen persecutor.Nick Paleologus is summoned by his family to help resolve a dispute which threatens to set his brothers and sisters against their aged and irrascible father. Michael Paleologus, retired archeologist and supposed descendent of the last Emperors of Byzantium, lives alone at Trennor, a remote and rambling Cornish house. A ridiculously generous offer has been made for the house, but he refuses to sell despite the urgings of his children, for whom the proceeds would solve a variety of problems. Nick accomplishes little in the role of mediator, and it is only when the stalemate is tragically broken that he and his siblings discover why their father insisted on rejecting the offer and what may really be the motives of the prospective buyer.Their increasingly desperate efforts to conceal the truth drag them into a deadly conflict with an unknown enemy who, while carefully concealing his own identity, seems determined to force them into a confrontation with their family's past. Perhaps too late, Nick realizes that the only way to escape from their persecutor's trap is to hunt him down. But the hunt involves excavating aterrible secret from their father's archeological career. And once that secret is known, nothing will ever be the same again.
It is autumn in the little Somerset town of Glastonbury. Lance Bradley is just beginning to feel that he is idling away his life there as usual when he receives a call for help from the eccentric sister of his old friend Rupert Alder. Inexplicably, Rupe has stopped sending the money that his dysfunctional siblings depend on. Reluctantly, Lance goes to London to learn what he can, only to find that his friend has vanished. Rupe's employers, the Eurybia Shipping Company, want him tried for fraud. A Japanese businessman called Hashimoto claims he has stolen a document of huge importance. And a private detective is demanding money for trying to trace on Rupe's behalf an American called Townley, who was involved in a mysterious death at Wilderness Farm, near Glastonbury, back in 1963, that year of so many momentous events which just happens also to be the year of Lance's birth. No sooner has Lance decided that whatever Rupe was up to is too risky for him to get involved in than he finds that he already is involved, and the only way out is to get in deeper still. Where is Rupe? What is the document he has stolen? Who is Townley? And what happened at Wilderness Farm in the summer of 1963 that holds the key to a secret more amazing than Lance Bradley could ever have imagined? .
Im Sommer 1916 stirbt Captain John Hallows, und seine Witwe Leonora bringt ein Kind zur Welt, was einen Skandal auslöst. Ein brutaler Mord auf Meongate verwandelt den Familienbesitz in ein mysteriöses Schreckenshaus, und jeder scheint ein dunkles Geheimnis zu haben.
It is January 1721. London is reeling from the effects of the greatest financial scandal of the age, the collapse of the South Sea Bubble. William Spandrel, a penniless mapmaker, is offered a discharge of his debts by his principal creditor, Sir Theodore Janssen, a director of the South Sea Company, on one condition: he must secretly convey an important package to a friend of Janssen's, Ysbrand de Vries, in Amsterdarn. The package safely delivered, Spandrel barely survives an attempt on his life, only to be blamed for the murder of de Vries himself. When de Vries's secretary, his English wife and the package itself go missing shortly afterwards, Spandrel realizes that he has become a pawn in several people's games. British Governmeut agents, and others, are on his trail, believing that the mysterious package contained secret details of the great South Sea scandal- secrets so explosive that their publication could spark a revolution in England. Spandrel's only chance of survival is to recover the package and place its contents in th right hands. But whose are the right hands? And what exactly are the contents? . Once again 'the master of suspense' draws the reader into a web of irresistible narrative, this time set in an age remote from our own, yet in some respects strangely familiar.
On assignment in Vienna, photographer Ian Jarrett falls desperately in love with a woman he meets by chance, Marian Esguard. Back in England, he breaks up with his wife and goes to meet Marian at an agreed rendezvous. Marian fails to show. Searching desperately for her, he stumbles on a Dorset churchyard full of the gravestones of dead Esguards. He also meets a psychotherapist, Daphne Sanger. She too is looking for someone: a former patient who has come to believe she is the reincarnation of Marion Esguard, who lived in Regency times and, it emerges, may have invented photography ten years before Fox Talbot. But if so, why is she unknown to history? And where is the woman he met in Vienna? Ian sets out to solve a mystery that may be 170 years old. At the end of his search a trap awaits him. There is a twist at the end of Caught in the Light that is Robert Goddard's most cunning to date.
A murder mystery that moves between a wedding party in 1981 and a murder in 1947. Chris Napier decides to delve into the events of the past to try and find out who killed his great uncle, Joshua Bradwell. Before long, larger mysteries begin to dog Chris's footsteps into the past.
Im Hintergrund die romantisch verklärte Gestalt eines Dichters, der im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg gekämpft hat. Irgendetwas in seinem Nachlass ist offenbar so wertvoll, dass es noch nach 50 Jahren einen Mord zu lohnen scheint.
Harry Barnett 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 only the first and 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 found 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. Harry Barnett was the flawed hero of Robert Goddard's earlier novel, the award-winning Into the Blue. But nothing in that experience prepared him--or the reader--for the baffling conundrums and heart-stopping suspense of Out of the Sun
A novel by the author of Closed Circle . While out walking Robin Timariot encounters a woman, with whom he has an unforgettable conversation. On his return home, Timariot discovers the woman was raped and murdered and he becomes obsessed with the search for the truth.
'1931. The new, luxurious transatlantic liner 'Empress of Britain' is on her eastward passage. Among the first-class passengers on board are two English confidence tricksters, making a discreet exit from a scam they have left behind them in the United States. A chance meeting on deck brings them a tempting new target in the shape of the beautiful and wealthy heiress, Diana Charnwood. It's a trick they've pulled before, with some success. Charm the daughter into an engagement to marry, then get the father to buy you off. So confident are they of success, in fact, that they make a pact: whichever of them wins Diana Charnwood's love will share his fortune with the other. But a violent death is to interrupt their neat little scheme. And they find themselves stumbling into something much darker than either had suspected ... ' -cover
Eine exotische Schöne ist des versuchten Giftmords an ihrem reichen und zynischen Ehemann angeklagt. Ihr verflossener Geliebter setzt alle Hebel in Bewegung, um sie vor dem Galgen zu retten.
Tristram Abberley was an acclaimed English poet of the 1930s whose legendary
reputation was sealed when he died fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish
Civil War. Nearly fifty years later, his sister Beatrix is brutally murdered
in her seaside cottage. But Charlotte has little time to mourn her aunt as
fifty years of secrets begin to unravel.
Geoffrey Staddon had never forgotten the house called Clouds Frome, his first important commission and the best thing he had ever done as an architect. Twelve years before the day in September 1923 when a paragraph in the newspaper made his blood run cold, he had turned his back on it for the last time, turned his back on the woman he loved, and who loved him. But when he read that Consuela Caswell had been charged with murder by poisoning he knew, with a certainty that defied the great divide of all those years, that she could not be guilty. As the remorse and shame of his own betrayal of her came flooding back, he knew too that he could not let matters rest. And when she sent her own daughter to him, pleading for help, he knew that he must return at last to Clouds Frome and to the dark secret that it held.
Harry Barnett is a middle-aged failure, leading a shabby existence in the shadow of a past disgrace, reduced to caretaking a friend's villa on the island of Rhodes and working in a bar to earn his keep. Then a guest at the villa--a young woman he had instantly and innocently warmed to--disappears on a mountain peak. Under suspicion of her murder, Harry stumbles on a set of photographs taken by Heather Mallender in the weeks before her disappearance. Desperately, obsessed by the mystery that has changed his life, he begins to trace back the movements and encounters that led to the moment when she vanished into the blue. The trail leads him back to England, to a world he thought he had left for ever, and at every step of the way a new and baffling light is shed on all the assumptions that have made Harry what he is.
On a mild autumn afternoon in 1882, William Trenchard sits smoking his pipe in the garden of his comfortable family home. When the creak of the garden gate heralds the arrival of an unexpected stranger, he is puzzled but not alarmed. He cannot know the destruction this man will wreak on all he holds most dear... The stranger announces himself ast James Norton, but claims he is in reality Sir James Davenall, the man to whom Trenchard's wife Constance had been engaged, and who had committed suicide eleven years ago. Sir Hugo, James's younger brother, and his mother, Lady Catherine, refuse to recognise Norton and force Trenchard - who fears the loss of his wife's affections - into an uneasy alliance against him. But Trenchard must plumb the depths of his own despair before the dark secrets of the Davenall family can finally, shockingly, be revealed...
Why should distinguished Edwardian Cabinet minister Edwin Strafford resign at the height of his parliamentary career? Why does the woman he loves so suddenly and coldly reject him? Why, seventy years later, should people go to such lengths — even as far as murder — to prevent the truth from being revealed? Martin Radford, history graduate, disaffected and unemployed, leaps at the chance to get to the island of Madeira and begin the hunt for a solution to the intriguing secret of Edwin Stafford's fall from grace. However, his seeming good fortune turns to nightmare as his investigation triggers a bizarre and violent train of events which remorselessly entangles him and those who believed they had escaped the spectre of crimes long past but never paid for...