Name to a Face

April 20, 2009
Tim Harding, the hero of this smoothly plotted novel of suspense from British author Goddard (Play to the End
), makes an unlikely sleuth. The owner of a “middling garden maintenance and landscaping business†in Monaco, Harding agrees to travel to Penzance in west Cornwall to help Barney Tozer, his wealthy friend and client. Tozer wants Harding to purchase on his behalf an antique ring that will be in the estate sale of Tozer's late eccentric uncle. In Cornwall, Harding becomes involved with Hayley Winter, an enigmatic young housekeeper who resembles a reporter who drowned 10 years earlier while scuba diving with Tozer. After the ring is stolen and Hayley disappears, Harding's search—into Tozer's odd past, a family superstition and English history—is hampered because everyone lies or hides his or her past. Goddard's gentle pacing and even prose build to an absorbing finale.

May 1, 2009
If a man who makes his living delivering multiple twists inside narratives featuring surprisingly capable fish-out-of-water protagonists who uncover long-suppressed historical mysteries suddenly delivered a straightforward plot free of such gimmicks, would his fans be upset? The answer to that facetious question wont be revealed in Goddards nineteenth novel, but loyalists should find Name to a Face a satisfying exploration of the authors proven formula. Tim Harding, gardener to the rich in and around Monaco, heads to Cornwall as a favor to a shady tax-exile client who owns a piece of his business and happens to be married to his lover. All Harding must do is buy an heirloom ring at the estate sale of his clients brother. It should be a quick jaunt, but alas, no one can be trusted, and things are not as they seem; soon Harding is entangled in a possible murder mystery involving an eighteenth-century shipwreck and a fourteenth-century legend for which verifiable evidence might exist. Its comfort food, sure, but the serviceable characters and competent dialogue go down easy, especially when Goddard spices it all up with compelling historical tidbits.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)