Robert Goddard

Estranged from his family for most of his adult life, Chris Napier is persuaded to return home for his niece's wedding. At the reception, he is shocked to recognise a dishevelled intruder as his childhood friend Nicky Lanyon, whose presence is a chilling reminder of a murder and subsequent trial that Chris has tried hard to forget.

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.

Six months after the sudden death of her husband, Leonora Galloway sets out on a trip to France with her daughter Penelope.

Then a guest at the villa - a young woman he had instantly and innocently warmed to - disappears on a mountain peak. The trail leads him back to England, to a world he thought he had left for ever - and a past he has tried desperately to forget.

On assignment in Vienna, photographer Ian Jarrett falls passionately in love with the mysterious and beautiful Marian. Back in the UK, Ian resolves to leave his wife for her - only to find Marian has disappeared, and the photographs of their brief time together have been savagely destroyed.

Martin is offered a job - to investigate the rise and fall of Strafford, an ambitious young politician whose downfall, in 1910, is as mysterious as the strange deaths that still haunt his family. Martin is intrigued.

Richard Eusden, embedsmand i et ministerium i London, lever en grå og rutinepræget tilværelse. En dag bliver han kontaktet af sin ekskone, der har nyt om hans gamle ven Marty. Marty er døende og beder Richard gøre sig en sidste tjeneste - han skal bringe ham en gammel kuffert, som har tilhørt Martys bedstefar, der var politibetjent på Isle of Wight. Richard indvilliger modvilligt og rejser til Bruxelles for at mødes med Marty, og her begynder en uforudsigelig og hæsblæsende jagt gennem nordeuropa. Den gamle kuffert indeholder nemlig muligvis afslørende - og værdifuldt - nyt om den russiske tsardatter Anastasia, som sammen med sin familie besøgte Isle of Wight og som siden måske, måske ikke blev skudt af bolsjevikkerne i Jekaterinburg i 1917. Nogen er ude efter kufferten, og Richard og Marty er jaget vildt. Pga Anastasias bedstemor, danske Dagmar, går jagten bla. over Danmark, hvor Richard og Marty løber ind i den mystiske og ubehagelige finansfyrste Tolmar. Som altid har Robert Goddard leveret en kvalitetskrimi, der kombinerer højt tempo med et fantastisk plot.

Stephen Swan is amazed when he hears that the uncle he thought had been killed in the Blitz is actually alive. For nearly four decades, Eldritch Swan has been locked away in an Irish prison and now, at last, has been released. Shocked and suspicious, Stephen listens to the old man's story and is caught up in a tale that begins at the dawn of World War II, when Eldritch worked for an Antwerp diamond dealer with a trove of Picassos--highly valuable paintings that later disappeared. Stephen, who finds his uncle by turns devious, charming, and brazen, then meets Rachel Banner, a beautiful American who may have inherited the Picassos--and is determined to see justice done for her family. But in this tale of revenge and redemption, justice is the ultimate illusion. Eldritch, Stephen, and the woman Stephen has fallen in love with soon find themselves fighting for their lives--against sinister forces still guarding a secret that must never be revealed.

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...

On a bright autumn afternoon in Truro, the Napier family celebrates one couple's golden wedding anniversary and another's marriage. But for one member of the clan, the day turns dark. Chris Napier, prodigal son, suddenly spots the ragged specter of a former friend, Nicky Lanyon--a man whose own family was ruined by the same twist of fate with which the Napiers were blessed. And the next morning, Chris is horrified to find Nicky dead, hanging from a tree where the boys once played.... For Chris, the suicide opens a floodgate of doubt and suspicion. How did his family's wealth slip out of the hands of a great-uncle, brutally murdered before he could change his will? Were the men convicted of the crime truly guilty? And who is the mysterious, seductive woman who claims to know the Napiers' darkest secrets? As the crimes of two families are exposed, a series of violent acts shadows him and suddenly Chris knows he's in uncharted waters...until a killer drops one last disguise--for the ultimate act of revenge.

At a lush villa on the sun-soaked island of Madeira, Martin Radford is given a second chance. His life ruined by scandal, Martin holds in his hands the leather-bound journal of another ruined man, former British cabinet minister Edwin Strafford. What's more, Martin is being offered a job--to return to England and investigate the rise and fall of Strafford, an ambitious young politician whose downfall, in 1910, is as mysterious as the strange deaths that still haunt his family. Martin is intrigued by Strafford's story, by the man's overwhelming love for a beautiful suffragette, by her inexplicable rejection of him and their love affair's political repercussions. But as he retraces Strafford's ruination, Martin realizes that Strafford did not fall by chance; he was pushed. Suddenly Martin, who has not cared for many people in his life, cares desperately--about a man's mysterious death and a family's terrible secret, about a love beyond reckoning and betrayal beyond imagining. Most of all Martin cares because the story he is uncovering is not yet over--and among the men and women still caught in its web, Martin himself may be the most vulnerable of all....

Six months after her husband's sudden death, Leonora Galloway sets off for a holiday in Paris with her daughter Penelope. At last the time has come when secrets can be shared and explanations begin... Their journey starts with an unscheduled stop at the imposing Thiepval Memorial to the dead of the Battle of the Somme near Amiens. Amongst those commemorated is Leonora's father. The date of his death is recorded and 30th April, 1916. But Leonora wasn't born until 14th March 1917. Penelope at once supposes a simple wartime illegitimacy as the clue to her mother's unhappy childhood and the family's sundered connections with her aristocratic heritage, about which she has always known so little. But nothing could have prepared her, or the reader, for the extraordinary story that is about to unfold.

When a young woman who has befriended him disappears, Harry Barnett, the down-and-out caretaker of a villa on the island of Rhodes and a prime suspect in her disappearance, follows a sparse trail to England in search of her and into the heart of a dangerous mystery. Reprint. 22,500 first printing.