"Name to a face" by Robert Goddard

Another classic Goddard mystery, narrated by the protagonist but, rather disconcertingly, in the third person. After a prologue in which a murder occurs long ago we land in modern day Monaco where small business owner Tim Harding is persuaded by a millionaire friend to spend a week in Penzance bidding for a family heirloom. While there he meets someone whose face he is sure he recognises from the past but she has never met him. Nevertheless they fall in love as theft and mystery begin to surround them. For the heirloom is a dead ringer for a ring stolen from the body of a shipwrecked Admiral in 1707 and somehow it relates to a diving death, a long forgotten murder and a mysterious monk at the time of the Black Death.

Goddard is back on form and when he is on form the result is a cracking read.

Also reviewed in this blog are:

• Found Wanting about the last tsars: it was
• Long time coming about a Picasso painting and an Irishman released from jail: confusing
• Blood count about a transplant surgeon with a war crime history who is essentially stupid
• Fault line
• The ways of the world: the first in a trilogy
• Play to the end about an actor in an Orton play in Brighton: good

"The dead are dead. You can't bring them back. And you can't avoid joining them sooner or later." (p 223)
"Gary appeared to be locked in some fierce debate with himself, the darting of his eyes signalling the trading of points." (P 271)

A pretty good thriller. August 2017; 472 pages