Goddard at his best in this tale about a business cover-up, romantic entanglement and the thespian world. Enjoy it for yourself or give it as a Christmas present. He’s one of our favourites.

Comparison: Hilary Bonner, Nicci French, Robert Ryan
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Synopsis

Actor Toby Flood arrives in Brighton for the final week of the production of a Joe Orton play. That night he is visited by his estranged wife, Jenny, who is worried that she is being stalked by a strange man. She asks Toby, for old times’ sake, to follow the man and get to the bottom of things.

What he discovers is a legacy of industrial negligence and a sinister connection with Jenny’s new partner, Roger Colborn. Spurred on by a desire to win Jenny back, Toby begins to ask probing questions. Before he fully understands the risks he is running, he finds himself caught up in a mysterious – and dangerous – tangle of family rivalries and murderous intent. The prospects for his survival until the close of the show suddenly start to look very far from good…

Reviews

'The novel is an absorbing display of craftsmanship, with the transition from the initial theatrical milieu to the Hitchcockian finale accomplished with typical deftness' Sunday Times

'Pages seldom turn more quickly then when you are reading Goddard's latest' Yorkshire Evening Post

'Twists in the plot come thick and fast' Guardian

'An exquisitely crafted tale of dirty dealings among nice English provincial families, this time revolving around a dangerous chemical factory. Goddard is the most idiosyncratic writer around, a wholly English institution with an unmistakable flavour, like cyanide cucumber sandwiches' The Times

About the Author

Robert Goddard was our Guest Editor in March 2011 - click here - to see the books that inspired his writing.   Robert Goddard was born in Hampshire. He read History at Cambridge and worked as an educational administrator in Devon before becoming a full-time novelist. His bestselling novels are: Past Caring, In Pale Battalions, Painting the Darkness, Into the Blue (winner of the first WH Smith Thumping Good Read Award and dramatized for TV in 1997, starring John Thaw), Take No Farewell, Hand in Glove, Closed Circle, Borrowed Time, Out of the Sun (a sequel to Into the Blue), Beyond Recall, Caught in the Light, Set in Stone, Sea Change, Dying to Tell, Days Without Number and Play to the End, Sight Unseen, Name to a Face, Found Wanting, Long Time Coming and Blood Count. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation