"One False Move" by Robert Goddard

Joe is a genius, capable of beating the best computer at the game of Go. As such he is in demand: by the gaming company who want to develop even better games, by the Secret Services who want to improve their spying techniques, and by the money-laundering he already works for. Double cross and double double cross abound as the worlds of high commerce, criminality and espionage collide in this latest Goddard thriller.

Goddard's hallmark is delving into historical mysteries whose repercussions ripple into the present with deadly effects but at least one of the historical roots (the death of Joe's father) is an orphaned trail. The world of Go is a bit of a mystery, too.

Fast paced: I read it in under two days.

Some great moments:

• "The labyrinth without the thread."
• "Doesn't digging just get you in a hole?"
• "A few days? That's our permanently rolling horizon now."

Goddard books reviewed in this blog include:

• One False Move: crime, espionage and commerce clash over a genius player of the game of Go
• Found Wanting: drugs and the last Tsar of Russia
• Long Time Coming: Irish terrorists and Picasso paintings
• Blood Count: a Serbian war criminal and a criminally stupid transplant surgeon
• Fault Line: another jaded male protagonist
• The Ways of the World: a world war one flying ace in Paris 1919, first of a trilogy
• Play to the End: An actor in murder-filled Brighton
• Name to a Face: a mystery linked to the murder of Edward II

January 2020; 370 pages