Лучшие книги Роберта Годдарда

Таинственный покупатель предлагает огромные деньги за полуразрушенную старинную усадьбу... Однако ее владелец, английский потомок древнего византийского рода и некогда известный археолог Майкл Палеолог, наотрез отказывается от выгодной сделки. Старческое упрямство? Так считают его дети. Но когда Майкла находят убитым при загадочных обстоятельствах, его старший сын Николас начинает собственное расследование и вскоре понимает: в доме скрыта древняя мистическая тайна - артефакт, хранимый здесь со времен первых Крестовых походов. И эта догадка может стоить ему жизни!

Harry Barnett is a middle-aged failure. Leading a shabby existence in the shadow of a past disgrace, he is reduced to caretaking a friend's villa on the island of Rhodes and working in a bar to earn his keep. Then a guest at the villa - a young woman he had instantly and innocently warmed to - disappears on a mountain peak.
Under suspicion of her murder, Harry stumbles on a set of photographs taken in the weeks before her disappearance. Obsessed by the mystery that has changed his life and determined to clear his name, he begins to trace back the movements and encounters that led to the moment when she vanished into the blue. The trail leads him back to England, to a world he thought he had left for ever - and a past he has tried desperately to forget.

A thrilling espionage story set in Paris after the First World War, full of classic Goddard double crosses and triple twists.

1919. The eyes of the world are on the city of Paris where diplomats, politicians, spies and opportunists have gathered to discuss the fate of Germany in the aftermath of the cataclysm that was the First World War. In such circumstances, the last thing the British diplomatic community need is the untimely death of one of their delegation. So when Sir Henry Maxted falls from the roof of his mistress’ apartment block in mysterious circumstances, their first instinct is to sanitize any unexplained aspects to his death.

But his son ex Royal Flying Corps ace, James ‘Max’ Maxted, has other ideas. He resolves to get to the bottom of Sir Henry’s death - even if it does mean disturbing the impression of harmonious calm which the negotiating teams have worked so hard to maintain. In a city where nations are jostling for position at the crossroads of history and stakes are very high, it is difficult to tell who is a friend and who is a foe. And Max will soon discover how much he needs friends.

Harry Barnett is shocked to learn that he has a son - David Venning, a brilliant mathematician, now languishing in hospital in a diabetic coma. And this is only the first and smallest of the mysteries he is about to encounter. It is not known whether David's condition is due to an accident or a suicide attempt. But Harry discovers that his mathematical notebooks are missing from the hotel room where he was found. And two other scientists employed by the same American forecasting institute have died in suspicious circumstances. Driven on by the slim hope of saving the son he never knew he had, Harry goes in search of the…

1910: Distinguished MP Edwin Strafford resigns at the pinnacle of his career, removing himself from the public eye. The woman he loves, and for whom he was willing to sacrifice everything, suddenly and coldly rejects him. All the reasons for his fall from grace are shrouded in darkness.

Seventy years later, historian Martin Radford is down on his luck when a mysterious benefactor offers him the opportunity of a lifetime: to uncover what exactly happened to Edwin Strafford. But this apparent good fortune swiftly turns into a nightmare. Radford's investigations trigger a violent series of events, which throw him straight into the path of those who believed they had escaped punishment for crimes long past but never paid for...

Harry Barnett thought he had left his military career behind, so he is startled when two figures from his past turn up on his doorstep after fifty years. An old friend has organised the reunion to end all reunions: a weekend in the Scottish castle where the ex-comrades took part in a psychological experiment many years before. They haven't seen each other since.

As they set off on their all-expenses-paid jaunt to Aberdeen, the old friends are in high spirits. But the cheerful atmosphere is quickly shattered by the apparent suicide of one of their party.

When a second death occurs, a sense of foreboding descends on the group. It appears that the past is coming back to haunt them, a past that none of them have ever spoken about. Their recollections are all frighteningly different. So what really happened?

Then when one of them uncovers an extraordinary secret, he becomes convinced that they will never leave the castle alive...

From the multiple Sunday Times bestseller,'One of the finest crime writers of any generation, Goddard here exercises all of his elegant, understated style and meticulous eye for detail...Goddard at his impeccable best: do not miss it.' Daily Mail
Umiko Wada has recently had quite enough excitement in her life. With her husband recently murdered and a mother who seems to want her married again before his body is cold

Fin des annees 1990. Leonora Galloway, une Anglaise, entreprend un voyage en France avec sa fille Penelope. Toutes deux ont decide de se rendre a Thiepval, pres d'Amiens, au memorial franco-britannique des soldats decedes durant la bataille de la Somme. Le pere de Leonora est tombe durant la 1ere guerre mondiale, mais la date de sa mort pose probleme, car Leonaora est en effet nee un an apres. Ce qui pourrait passer pour un banal adultere de guerre va en fait reveler une terrible histoire de secrets de famille, l'ombre d'un meurtre jamais resolu. On se retrouve transporte en 1914, dans un manoir anglais pour revivre les etapes d'un drame qui a marque 3 generations.

1882. When the creak of the garden gate one autumn afternoon sounds the arrival of an unexpected stranger, William Trenchard is puzzled, but not alarmed. He cannot possibly know the destruction this visitor will wreak on all he holds dear.

The stranger is James Norton, who claims to be the man William's wife Constance was once engaged to, and who was reported to have committed suicide eleven years ago. Trenchard fears the loss of his wife's affections, but he is forced to plumb the depths of his own despair before the dark secrets of the Davenall family can finally - shockingly - be revealed...

There's no such thing as easy money. As surgeon Edward Hammond is about to find out. Thirteen years ago he performed a life saving operation on a Serbian gangster, Dragan Gazi. Gazi is now standing trial for war crimes in the international court in The Hague. After his life was saved, his men went on to slaughter thousands in the Balkan civil wars.

Now Gazi's family want more from him: in exchange for keeping Hammond's dirty little secret, they want him to find for them the man who holds the key to all the money Gazi squirreled away before he was locked up. But Italian financier, Marco Piravani, doesn't want to be found, not by Hammond, not by anyone. No sooner has Hammond tracked him down, than Piravani has disappeared again.

His pursuit will take him first to the Hague, and then to Milan to find the Italian, and then finally back to the scene of his crime, Belgrade, where he must confront the decisions he once so easily took. Only then will he be able to lay the past to rest...

One fateful summer evening, businessman Robin Timariot meets a strikingly beautiful woman while out walking. They exchange only a few words, but those words prove to be unforgettable. A few days later, the newspapers are full of the rape and murder of Lady Louise Paxton - and to his horror, Timariot realises that this was the woman he met just hours before her death.

A man is swiftly charged and convicted of the crime, but a series of bizarre events begin to convince Timariot that all is not what it seems. Against his better judgement, he is soon sucked into the tortuous complexity of the dead woman's life. But the closer Timariot gets to the truth, the more hideous and uncertain it seems to be. And far too late, he realizes that anybody who uncovers it is unlikely to live...

Stephen Swan is amazed when he hears that the uncle he thought had been killed in the Blitz is actually alive. For nearly four decades, Eldritch Swan has been locked away in an Irish prison and now, at last, has been released. Shocked and suspicious, Stephen listens to the old man’s story and is caught up in a tale that begins at the dawn of World War II, when Eldritch worked for an Antwerp diamond dealer with a trove of Picassos—highly valuable paintings that later disappeared. Stephen, who finds his uncle by turns devious, charming, and brazen, then meets Rachel Banner, a beautiful American who may have inherited the Picassos—and is…