Found Wanting

"Found Wanting" by Robert Goddard is a fast-paced thriller, although you wouldn't think so at the beginning. Goddard's chief character, Richard Eusden, approaching fifty and perfectly respectable, reports daily to his dead-end job in the British Foreign Office. Years ago he realized "he should never have become a civil servant ... he should have quit ... dropped out, travelled the world, searched for something else -- anything else -- to do with his life." With such deep-rooted discontent, he would never feel himself God's set man in London. Richard had been best friends with Marty Hewitson since their early childhood on Britain's Isle of Wight. Marty's grandfather Clem Hewitson would regale them with not always believable tales about his world travels and supposed acquaintance with the Russian royal family. In school, both boys were smart but Marty, "the more naturally gifted," achieved success without effort. Their rivalry continued at Cambridge, where each was entranced by the bewitching Gemma Conway. Afterwards, Richard entered Civil Service, Marty went into TV journalism, and Gemma completed her Ph.D. Respectively, quite the stable, active, intellectual trinity. (It may be tempting and fun, but do not elevate the metaphor too far to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.) The triangle continued into their personal lives. Gemma was more attracted to Marty, but he had gotten into drugs, so she married Richard, then chafed against their suburban conformity. Marty had been ITV's Man in the Middle East, coming back with a Lebanese girlfriend. The foursome dated for a time. Soon Marty's girlfriend reveals to Richard that Gemma has been seeing Marty. Gemma divorces Richard, marries Marty despite the drugs, and eventually also divorces him. Marty serves eighteen months for drug dealing, followed by fleeing the country after a second offense, leaving Richard stuck for the bail money. All the complications ended the threesome. They hadn't seen each other for years. That could have been the end of it. Robert Goddard could have stopped his recountal right there and had a pretty good short story, but the tale was to take a simple sounding but decidedly dangerous turn. Gemma, who had become more attractive with time, tracks Richard down in London, telling him that Marty is dying and urgently needs his help. Why should he, Richard vexedly tells himself, pay attention to either one of them. But he relents. All Richard has to do is take a package of letters -- originally Grandfather Clem's -- to Marty in Brussels. "It's just a day trip, Richard. You'll be back this evening." Don't believe it. Robert Goddard's plot construction is impeccable and his writing is as smooth and flowing as the opening of a symphony, but duplicities build upon duplicities and nothing is as it seems, right up until the tempo and strains of the dangerous ending. Goddard fully intentionally immerses the reader in the exotic spellings and diacriticals (at least to these American eyes) of

Like many mystery and suspense writers, Robert Goddard has developed a formula for the novels he has crafted at the rate of about one a year over the two decades or more. And like many writers, some of these are outstandingly successful -- Past Caring, his debut, was one of those, as is Hand in Glove and Into the Blue, while a handful fall flat on their faces. This falls squarely in the middle of the spectrum -- intriguing enough to keep the reader glued to the page, but not compelling enough for the story to haunt him or her days or weeks later, making re-reading mandatory. As is his wont, Goddard's main character is a disillusioned, middle-aged man slightly the worse for wear after his tussles with life. In this case, Richard Eusden's tussles included a nasty divorce and the end of his long friendship with his best friend, Marty. Now his ex-wife, Gemma, tracks him down to tell him that Marty is dying and needs Eusden to drop everything to do him a final favor -- immediately. Needless to say -- as with all Goddard's novels -- nothing is quite that simple. Eusden obliges, and goes off to meet Marty, only to get entangled in a complex web of intrigue that appears to have been spun by a mysterious Scandinavian billionaire. With each encounter, Eusden's convictions and beliefs and routines are shaken up a bit more, and his life and quest to help Marty becomes more complex -- and more personal. Reading a Goddard novel is a bit like peeling an onion -- remove one layer, and there's another one, just beneath it. In this novel, each apparent step forward simply leaves Eusden staring at the same puzzle from a different perspective. Who can he trust to tell him the truth? How will he ever come to grips with all the hidden agendas? The mystery at the heart of the novel is where it most strains the reader's credulity: did a member of the Russian imperial family survive the massacre of 1918? Goddard chooses to believe that this was at least possible, and ties Eusden's grandfather -- a policeman in Cowes who was present when the Imperial family visited England years before the revolution and attended the famous Cowes regatta -- to their fate, indirectly. Will the documents that Clem left behind and the stories that he told Eusden and Marty prove the identity of a missing heir to the Russian throne? Or will their existence simply lead to the death of first Marty (before his brain tumor can kill him) and Eusden? The possible survival of one or more Romanovs is a frequent literary device; happily, in this instance, Goddard keeps the focus more on Eusden's plight and the very modern-day questions surrounding a wealthy family dynasty. This will not be one of the top-caliber Goddard novels -- a warning to those fans -- but it is a completely different type of noir-ish suspense writing that may well appeal to anyone who relishes a flawed hero trying to navigate his way through an endless labyrinth of mysteries. For anyone who hasn't read a Goddard novel before,