Synopses & Reviews
Harry Barnett lives the life of an Englishman on permanent vacation in Greece, house-sitting for a powerful friend and hiding from a past disgrace. That is, until a guest at the villa disappears on a walking tour, and Harry is the number one suspect. While a Greek detective tries to trap him, and the British tabloids pillory him at home, Harry's conscience is his worst enemy of all. What happened to young, beautiful Heather Mallender? Who took her and why didn't Harry realize that something was amiss?
Suddenly, a man steeped in failure has found a purpose, retracing the strange, twisting route that led to Heather's vanishing. But the more he learns, the less he knows. Until Harry finds himself at the heart of a dangerous puzzle whose pieces are scattered everywhere: in the realm of British politics, in the beds of adulterous lovers, in the past, the present, and most of all, amid the secrets of a killer...
Review
"Ultimate page-turner and late-night obsessive read." Rocky Mountain News
Review
"False friends, veiled threats...anybody who reads the first 50 pages will want to finish the rest without getting up." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Goddard's elegant and gothic portrait of blackmail, deception, and death is hampered by its meandering pace and intricacy. Still, the novel is ultimately successful." Library Journal
Review
"A cracker, twisting, turning and exploding with real skill." Daily Mirror (London)
Review
"A book that will push the edges of late night fatigue...had me utterly spellbound...cracking good entertainment." Washington Post
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
A sudden disappearance. A twisting hunt for the truth. A harrowing journey... "Robert Goodard's manipulation of suspense and surprise rarely fails to dazzle."--The New York Times Book Review
Harry Barnett lives the life of an Englishman on permanent vacation in Greece, house-sitting for a powerful friend and hiding from a past disgrace. That is, until a guest at the villa disappears on a walking tour, and Harry is the number one suspect. While a Greek detective tries to trap him, and the British tabloids pillory him at home, Harry's conscience is his worst enemy of all. What happened to young, beautiful Heather Mallender? Who took her--and why didn't Harry realize that something was amiss?
Suddenly, a man steeped in failure has found a purpose, retracing the strange, twisting route that led to Heather's vanishing. But the more he learns, the less he knows. Until Harry finds himself at the heart of a dangerous puzzle whose pieces are scattered everywhere: in the realm of British politics, in the beds of adulterous lovers, in the past, the present, and most of all, amid the secrets of a killer. . . .
Praise for Into the Blue
"Cracking good literature entertainment . . . had me utterly spellbound . . . Into the Blue is] a book that will push the edges of late night fatigue. . . . It's the storyteller as magician; we only see what he wants us to see, when he wants us to see it."--Washington Post Book World
"A cracker, twisting, turning and exploding with real skill."--Daily Mirror
"Impossible to put down . . . totally compels you from the first page to the last . . . a wonderful storyteller."--Yorkshire Post
About the Author
Robert Goddard graduated from Cambridge University and worked as an educational administrator before becoming a full-time novelist. The author of sixteen bestselling novels, including Sight Unseen, Play to the End, In Pale Battalions, and Hand in Glove, which will be forthcoming from Delta, Goddard lives in England, where he is at work on his next novel.