Product Description

Chris Napier is shocked by the unexpected appearance of his boyhood friend, Mark Sheldon, at a wedding party at the Napier's house in Cornwall. When Mark hangs himself in the garden, the mysterious and dark pasts of their respective families suddenly begin to dog Chris's footsteps.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2144051 in Books
• Published on: 1997-09-15
• Formats: Abridged, Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 2
• Binding: Audio Cassette

Amazon.com Review
A carefully crafted tale of suspense, Beyond Recall interweaves present and past as Christian Napier sets out to discover the truth behind his great-uncle's murder, committed during the days of rationing and privation following the Second World War. That death provided the foundation of the Napier family's subsequent prosperity, but Christian is led to question the verdict reached in the case by the more recent suicide of an old and abandoned friend. The whole of the action is relayed through Napier's eyes and voice as he struggles to sort out his understanding of what happened before he was born, his own memories as a child, the alcohol-hazed intervening years, and the current arm's-length relationship he maintains with the surviving members of his family.

Goddard's sense of place is strong. The Cornish market town of Truro, with its 19th-century cathedral looming over events spanning a century, provides the backdrop for the mystery and also for the shifting fortunes of the British experience. Descriptions of a grand family home transformed into a hotel and conference center, the tiny chain-pulled ferry crossing an estuary as it has done for generations, and Cornwall's unchanging and temperate beauty offer convincing detail beyond the usual place-name dropping.

Although the denouement is muddled by a confusion of identities and too many people thought dead resurfacing (both to Napier's dismay and delight), the general scheme is entertaining enough and just within the bounds of what's believable, given Goddard's manipulation of the reader's expectations. The central themes of revenge and greed lose some of their power when mixed with a subplot colored by a '90s obsession with sexual misdeeds, but these flaws do not detract from the pleasure of the whole. An enjoyable read, fraught with the tension Goddard's readers have come to expect.

From Publishers Weekly
As he does so smoothly and so well (Out of the Sun, etc.), Goddard again creates a narrator who uncovers secrets buried in the past that cast grim shadows on later generations. Here he takes classic English mystery staples?a grand old house in Cornwall, a family fortune in dispute, murder and blackmail?and concocts an absorbing suspense novel with a modern sensibility. Alienated from his family for some years, Chris Napier returns home to the Cornish town of Truro for his niece's wedding at Tredower House, the family estate (now a hotel and conference center) bequeathed by his adventurous great uncle, Joshua Carnoweth. Guests are reminded of an unpleasant event when Chris's boyhood friend, Nicky Lanyon, shows up at the reception to announce that his father, who was hanged for the murder of Uncle Joshua, was innocent of the deed. Nicky culminates his plea by committing suicide. In Nicky's memory, Chris investigates the 34-year-old murder case, while one mysterious woman goes after his money and another wins his heart. Goddard intricately interweaves the life stories of three generations, adding texture to the parallel plots: the love between his great-uncle and Nicky's grandmother, the moral crises of the WWII generation and Chris's own tale of 1960s rebellion. As usual, Goddard is meticulous with background details and local color, and his characters, with their good manners and dark secrets, seem to have stepped out of a Daphne Du Maurier novel. There are enough surprises in this tale of switched identities and lingering resentments to keep readers steadily engrossed.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
An unwelcome hint that the man who was executed long ago for the murder of Christian Napier's great-uncle brings back the past with a rush in Goddard's latest demi-period thriller (Out of the Sun, 1997, etc.). Everybody knows that Joshua Carnoweth, the Croesus of the Cornish town of Truro, was stabbed to death by ne'er-do-well Edmund Tully. Tully confessed to taking $500 to commit the crime back in 1947, showing the well-rehearsed remorse that earned him a life sentence that ended with his release in 1969. But Michael Lanyon--the son of the love Joshua left behind when he went off to make his fortune in the Klondike, the young man he'd brought up on his estate and regarded as his heir, and the man Tully insisted had hired him to kill the old man--was promptly hanged and the matter forgotten (or so it seems) until 1981, when Michael's son Nicky, Chris Napier's childhood friend, turns up at a family wedding to enlist Chris's help in clearing his father's name--only to hang himself that night. Stung by guilt and nagging suspicions of his family, and urged on by Nicky's long-lost sister Michaela, Chris toils to uncover the truth, which obligingly unrolls in Goddard's ceremonious periods (``The past is a room you only realize you've left when you hear the door close behind you''). Wading through thickets of well-groomed family skeletons, Chris finds two generations of lies and felonies devoted to covering up the truth practically nobody but him had truly forgotten before stumbling on Goddard's trademark malefactor: a survivor of the past determined to get revenge on Joshua's family, even (or especially) if it means impersonation, blackmail, arson, murder--whatever it takes to bring every family member to his or her trembling knees. The period trappings are generally kept to a seemly modicum, and the suspense mounts to a fine crescendo. A superior example of Goddard's velvet-cloaked menace. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Another gem from Goddard!
This is my third Goddard book and he never really ceases to amaze me. I read Closed Circle first, which was great, but then Out of the Sun was incredible. This one, like all of his work, has a wonderfully crafted plot and excitement galore. Goddard is a hidden gem outside England, and that's a shame. If you don't know which of his books to buy, start with Past Caring and you'll get all of them after that. Goddard has quickly become my favorite author and I will gladly devour anything he writes!!

The Twists Will Keep You Hooked
This was my first Robert Goddard novel, and after reading this book in less than 24 hours I can certainly be considered a new fan.

I simply could not put this book down. It did what every good thriller should be able to do -- transfix you and make you want to turn the page to see what happens next. It was the twists that kept me reading this book. However, they are not so frequent that you expect a twist at the end of every chapter. There are just enough thrown in to make you reconsider every time you think you've sorted out what is really going on.

Reading the other reviews posted here, I was a little concerned about all the flashbacks that this novel uses. But upon reading the book I found it no problem at all. It is not overdone and they are all contexualised with modern day events. One will have no problem at all keeping track of things.

I was glued to this novel for the better part of a day, reading it in very quick time. I simply had to find out what was going to happen next! If you like that in a thriller, then you will greatly enjoy this novel.

A real ride....
This was my first Robert Goddard book and I was pleasantly surprised. Goddard's writing evokes a sense of place almost as strong as those created by P.D. James. I don't think all of Goddard's characters are as well drawn as they might have been, but he does a good job with the Great Uncle, Christian, and Nicky. "Simone" is over the top at times, and her character stretched my suspension of disbelief pretty taut.

The plot reminded me of LeCarre's "Perfect Spy" or Deborah Crombie's "Kissed a Sad Goodbye" with it's the twists and turns and links between the present action and the events of the past. I found it a challenge to keep things straight at times, but I anticipated almost every plot twist before it happened with a few exceptions, so either I'm pretty good at deciphering mysteries, or the plot isn't as confusing as some critics have suggested. I also think it helped to read the book in a 24 hour period.

I recommend this book. It's head and shoulders above many other mysteries I've read lately by "famous" authors.