March 2013: A long time since I have read a Goddard, so all the old intrigue caught me immediately. The setting in the South West returns to familiar ground and certainly the demense of my distant ancestors. As with all his novels depressed male protagonist is in over-his-head, while femme-fatale hovers at the margins.

Amazon describes it "It could be your average suicide. A man found dead in his car, engine running, parked at the end of a lonely track, a tube feeding deadly fumes from the exhaust through the window. Except for the seven-year-old boy still breathing in the boot... For Jonathan Kellaway, the past is somewhere he chooses not to go. Dead friends, lost lovers and a family dynasty hell-bent on self- destruction lie buried there. But if he is to uncover the truth, he must confront all the secrets which have consumed his life, and which may yet consume him... "