Tim Harding travels to an important place in his past in an
effort to help out a friend, knowing he'll have to face
memories of the loss of his wife. But it's time to do that
and when Barney Tozer asks Tim to visit Cornwall and
represent him at an auction, it seems like the thing to do.
But the task -- to help Barney's brother purchase an antique
ring purported to have been in their family -- turns out to
have many devious twists and underlying mysteries. The ring
is stolen before the auction can begin, and as Tim tries to
determine what happened to it, old stories emerge. The one
theme that runs through those stories is of a young woman
who died in a diving accident -- and many thought Barney was
to blame for her death.
Tim is compelled to find the answers, dragging himself
through historical tales and more recent dramas. In his
search, he meets a woman who helps him rediscover feelings
he thought died with his wife.
Reading Mr. Goddard is like the first taste of a sinful
dessert. A first bite that was going to be just two or
three with an eye toward a trim waist suddenly becomes a
wholehearted plunge into decadence. You slide into
Goddard's books easily, and before you know it, you're
compelled to turn pages because you can only guess what
he'll do next. Prepare for twists and turns and hidden
agendas -- and an excellent read.
He’d seen her somewhere once—he was sure of that. But the
young woman gave no hint of recognition and before this
could be explained, everything fell apart. . . . Tim
Harding has come to Cornwall at the behest of a friend to
represent him in an auction and facilitate the purchase of
a much-coveted antique ring. Hayley Winter has come there
for reasons of her own . . . and a centuries-old mystery
is about to come crashing down around them both.
A
decade before, a woman matching Hayley’s exact description
died in a suspicious diving accident—at the side of the
man giving Harding his orders. Now the ring, said to have
been cut off the finger of a drowned British naval
commander in 1707, is at the center of a many-tendrilled
puzzle. Uncanny resemblances . . . stunning
contradictions . . . Then Hayley’s sudden
disappearance . . . For Harding, one misstep and a handful
of coincidences ignite a search through dozens of lives,
back into English history and the age of the Black Death,
and forward to a fatal meeting in Germany . . . to find
Hayley, her true identity, and the most shocking secret of
all.