Long Time Coming

Goddard manages to go back and forth in time and masterly reveals story details to make a satisfying war time tale which is only understood thirty years later. Highly recommended. This reader will look for more Robert Goddard books.

Robert Goddard writes suspenseful novels that typically span many years in British history and demonstrate graphically the unforeseen consequences of long-ago acts. Long Time Coming is one of the 20 books he has written since the early 90s and one of 12 now available for the Kindle. I acquired an addiction for Goddard's work six or eight books ago and grab every new entry on the list as soon as it's available. Each of Goddard's mystery novels is a standalone story. There are virtually no reappearing characters, much less a series hero. Another of the hallmarks of Goddard's writing is his mastery of complex plotting. His books are full of complications, setbacks, and surprises, and Long Time Coming is no exception. In Long Time Coming, the story is rooted in the legendarily brutal Belgian empire in the Congo in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. But the action shifts back and forth from England to Ireland to Belgium, with episodes alternating from 1976 to 1940 and back again at regular intervals and concluding with shorter scenes in 1922 and 2008. Long Time Coming tells the tale of Stephen Swan, a young English geologist relocated in 1976 to his home after a stint in the Texas oilfields, and his uncle, Eldritch Swan, who has suddenly appeared in Stephen's life after 36 years in an Irish prison. Stephen's parents had always told him his father's brother had died in the Blitz, but Eldritch, to the young man's chagrin, is very much alive. And he proceeds to involve his nephew in a perilous chase through London, Dublin, and Antwerp in search of proof that he was innocent of the charge that confined him to prison for more than a third of a century. Along the way we meet a crooked Antwerp diamond merchant and his beautiful young granddaughter, an IRA terrorist with a world-class talent at forging art, a priceless collection of Picassos, a ruthless and venal former MI6 operative now living the life of a rural squire, and an assortment of police officers, secret service agents, and lawyers in England, Ireland, and Belgium. Long Time Coming is no mere whodunit but a genuine novel of suspense, peopled by three-dimensional characters living in a moral universe painted in shades of gray. (From Mal Warwick's Blog on Books)

In 1976, sixty-eight year old Eldritch Swan arrives at his widow sister-in-law's home in Paignton after over three decades in an Irish prison. His nephew Stephen Swan is also heading to his mom's home having ended an engagement. Stephen is shocked to learn his paternal uncle is alive as he thought Eldritch died in the Nazi Blitz in 1940. He asks his Uncle Eldritch why he was incarnated all these years without anyone aware he still lived; the older man says he cannot tell anyone or he will die in that Irish prison. In 1940 Eldritch worked as secretary to Antwerp diamond merchant, Isaac Meridor. He insists he is innocent of the traitorous charges that locked him away, but admits he helped Miles Linley steal his employer's Picasso collection and has a chance to make some money from a lawyer whose client insists tycoon Jay Brownlow owns a stolen Picasso collection that Meridor's granddaughter Rachel claims is rightfully hers. This is a terrific thriller that effortlessly switches back and forth between 1940 and 1976 as what happened to obviously still roguish Uncle Eldritch is slowly answered with more questions arising. The two subplots are well written as Stephen and Rachel try to solve the modern day question of art ownership by deciphering the 1940 mystery with ties to Ireland's position on which side to support during WWII. Harriet Klausner