Sight Unseen by Robert Goddard

This is my first book by this English author. It is an interesting plot about a murder/kidnapping that happened 23 years before the current time of the book, one that was witnessed by David Umber who was doing research at the time for his Ph.D. in history. It was a 3-yo girl that was kidnapped and presumably killed, and her 7-yo sister that was killed when she stepped in front of the kidnap getaway van. A 10-yo brother survived the tragedies. Umber then became involved with the children’s nanny, Sally, and they eventually married. But, there is happiness everywhere as the result of this incident. The parents of the children divorce, and Umber’s marriage also falls apart. Then these grizzly scenes are revisited when Sally is found dead in her bathtub, presumably due to a suicide. The story of Umber’s historical research into an 18^th century English writer Junius, which he has abandoned to lead the life of an uninspired and quasi-teacher, is woven into the story, so we have 21^st and 18^th century mysteries working simultaneously. In the current day story, Umber is involved with all of the people who were originally involved in the murder/kidnap case, the parents and stepparents, the Detective Chief Inspector George Sharp, etc. To say more would give away too much of the plot. At times, the story became much too complex, but then Goddard saved the story through the artful use of his characters and their relationships with each other. It was a good book, not a great one, and I have another Goddard Book on my Kindle, so I’ll give him another chance.

West Coast Don

Borrowed Time by Robert Goddard

Had this been my first Goddard book, I'm not sure I would've read Sight Unseen or Never Go Back, both of which I enthusiastically reported on earlier.

Robin Timariot is living an unpretentious life as a Eurocrat in Brussels, working for the European Union offices, when his older brother, head of the family business, dies suddenly. Robin returns for the funeral and considers joining the business, Timariot and Smalls, makers of cricket bats. To mull over his decision, he takes off on a weeklong hike. At one overlook, he is surprised by a casual comment from an older woman, Louise. They exchange what would become an intimate moment (not what you fools think) and both go on their separate ways. After the hike and the decision to move back home, Robin learns that this lady and another man, a local artist, were murdered within hours of their meeting.

From here, two stories run in parallel. Timariot and Smalls take over a sporting firm in Australia, but the acquisition turns sour and the company is awash in red ink. A larger Aussie firm puts in an offer that tears the family apart. The other story is the murder investigation that puts a small time thief away for murder and rape. Robin gets to know the deceased's 2 daughters, one a law student (Sarah) and the other, Rowena, is seriously imbalanced. The widower ends up marrying Robin's widowed sister-in-law and Rowena also manages to get married, but out of the blue, commits suicide. And of all things, Rowena's husband goes mental and confesses to the original crime. Huh? So, while I was thinking this somewhat laborious tale was running its course, I still had 150 pages to go.

I'll skip the details and hooks to get you to read it and get right to the punch. Sarah and Rowena's husband cook up this confession to get the trial re-opened, get the guilty party released so they can extract some justice that the UK legal system seems unable to carry out. But we still have to find out the motivation for the original crime. Turns out Louise is fed up and plans to leave her husband and he thinks she is leaving him for the artist (remember him? the other victim). So he hires a guy who hires a guy who hires the thief to kill the artist, but also has to kill Louise when she stumbles in on the crime. And just as we learn this, Louise's schmuck husband ends up dead at the bottom of a cliff in Portugal. In the end, Sarah and her co-conspirator have the thief bound and ready to kill, but Robin finds them, talks them out of having their revenge with only Rowena's husband killing himself. So, the husband/father did it, drives a daughter to suicide and ends up dead himself. Fun times.

As I said, this is a story of two disintegrating families, one to business and the other to jealousy, hypocrisy, rage, and revenge. After reading it . . . not my cup of tea - learned to read the jacket liner closer. And I chose this over a Ken Bruen book. go figure.

But things are looking up. the library called toady. . . a copy of the latest Jack Reacher book has my name on it. Life is good. Check back in a week.

east coast don