This story begins in Monaco where the wealthy Cornishman Barney Tozer asks Tom Harding, owner of a landscaping business, to do him a favor.  For legal reasons and fear of the tax man, Tozer cannot return to England for the estate sale of his elderly uncle.

Will Harding pop over and successfully bid on an heirloom ring that has been in the family for centuries? It seems the uncle deliberately kept it from him and now is his chance to regain it

Out of friendship since Tozer financed his business and guilt since he is having an affair with Tozer’s wife, Carol, Harding agrees even though he is reluctant to return to Cornwall since it was there that his wife spent her last days before succumbing to cancer. Once there, he meets Tozer’s irascible brother and an amazing woman whose face is familiar. She was the uncle’s housekeeper and knows of no time when she and Harding have met.  Yet he is certain that their paths have crossed.

Within a very short time his cell phone is stolen with a very incriminating message on it, the ring is stolen, and he learns of a decade old tragedy that seems to play a part in Tozer’s abandonment of his native land.  A woman was seriously injured in a diving accident and spent years in a coma before her death.  Was Tozer responsible for her death?

Goddard’s gift is in engaging the reader so that it becomes imperative to know what really happened. Then you are aware that you have not even been asking the correct questions and what actually happened is nothing like what you expected. Is it misdirection? Sometimes. Do we lack a valuable piece of information? Perhaps. Is Goddard a master at weaving a ripping good yarn?  Yes. 

--Jane Davis