Found Wanting [Hardcover]

If I could have rated this 2 1/2 stars, I might have done so. Name to a Face, Goddard's previous novel, had some flashes of what most of us enjoy about Goddard's best novels (Past Caring, Painting the Darkness, and In Pale Battalions--all 5-star works). I rated Name to a Face 3 stars on Amazon, and I cannot bring myself to give Found Wanting that high a rating. Found Wanting is not a terrible book--it's, well, pedestrian. There's little that's memorable, little that will remind you of what Goddard can be capable of. I wander into a bookstore to browse, and I pick up a book and on the dustcover it says "The President's [or, for Brits, the Prime Minister's] daughter has been kidnapped by.." and I close the book and put it back on the store shelf. That plot line has been thoroughly beaten to death. Stories about the Russian Royal Family are not quite as common, but Bayard's The Black Tower is a recent release, and interesting for its portrayal of Vidocq, not for the Russian Royal Family material. Found Wanting also made me think of the people who write James Bond novels who are not Ian Fleming. Get a life! If you have talent, create your own characters. Could Found Wanting be written by, say, Ludwig Snarf, "in the style of Robert Goddard"? This book almost has that feel to it.

The protagonist, Richard Eusden, a Foreign Office plodder, is swept up in a web of intrigue. This is a common theme of Goddard's [not always a FO plodder, but usually a nonentity of some kind]. The common theme is that this being swept up is unwilling and unwitting--doing a small favor for a friend--something most of us might perhaps do. But here, Eusden seems to be a much more willing participant, and the actions he takes simply do not seem as reasonable as they should be, and he is not as hesitant as he should be. Eusden's former wife, who is supposed to deliver a mysterious briefcase of materials to her second husband (Marty, a friend of Eusden) in Brussels, asks Eusden to deliver the briefcase. Marty has had numerous run-ins with the law. There was no convincing reason why Eusden should agree to do something for which--as far as he knows--might land him in prison for many years so very readily. From there we get further misadventures--lots of criminal actions for which the longtime civil servant never considers informing the police. The dust cover blurb indicates that the plot story involves the Tsar's family at Ekaterinburg many years before. But none of this is very original, and Eusden's behavior never seems very logical.

Since Eusden never seems to do what you or I might do in a similar situation, it's hard to identify with him. Compare this with Goddard's great works Past Caring, Painting the Darkness, and In Pale Battalions. In those novels you can easily identify with the protagonists: you can understand their bewilderment, their reactions, their behavior. You might not do exactly the same thing in the same situation, but you can understand and appreciate why they did what they did. But not here. The pace seems slow and the plotline unsatisfying. The three earlier books I've mentioned I have read perhaps 6-8 times. I have multiple copies (in case I misplace one) and I look forward to reading them again and again. They are examples of truly great writing, but in that regard, Found Wanting is found wanting.

Like many mystery and suspense writers, Robert Goddard has developed a formula for the novels he has crafted at the rate of about one a year over the two decades or more. And like many writers, some of these are outstandingly successful -- Past Caring, his debut, was one of those, as is Hand in Glove and Into the Blue, while a handful fall flat on their faces. This falls squarely in the middle of the spectrum -- intriguing enough to keep the reader glued to the page, but not compelling enough for the story to haunt him or her days or weeks later, making re-reading mandatory.

As is his wont, Goddard's main character is a disillusioned, middle-aged man slightly the worse for wear after his tussles with life. In this case, Richard Eusden's tussles included a nasty divorce and the end of his long friendship with his best friend, Marty. Now his ex-wife, Gemma, tracks him down to tell him that Marty is dying and needs Eusden to drop everything to do him a final favor -- immediately.

Needless to say -- as with all Goddard's novels -- nothing is quite that simple. Eusden obliges, and goes off to meet Marty, only to get entangled in a complex web of intrigue that appears to have been spun by a mysterious Scandinavian billionaire. With each encounter, Eusden's convictions and beliefs and routines are shaken up a bit more, and his life and quest to help Marty becomes more complex -- and more personal. Reading a Goddard novel is a bit like peeling an onion -- remove one layer, and there's another one, just beneath it. In this novel, each apparent step forward simply leaves Eusden staring at the same puzzle from a different perspective. Who can he trust to tell him the truth? How will he ever come to grips with all the hidden agendas?

The mystery at the heart of the novel is where it most strains the reader's credulity: did a member of the Russian imperial family survive the massacre of 1918? Goddard chooses to believe that this was at least possible, and ties Eusden's grandfather -- a policeman in Cowes who was present when the Imperial family visited England years before the revolution and attended the famous Cowes regatta -- to their fate, indirectly. Will the documents that Clem left behind and the stories that he told Eusden and Marty prove the identity of a missing heir to the Russian throne? Or will their existence simply lead to the death of first Marty (before his brain tumor can kill him) and Eusden?

The possible survival of one or more Romanovs is a frequent literary device; happily, in this instance, Goddard keeps the focus more on Eusden's plight and the very modern-day questions surrounding a wealthy family dynasty. This will not be one of the top-caliber Goddard novels -- a warning to those fans -- but it is a completely different type of noir-ish suspense writing that may well appeal to anyone who relishes a flawed hero trying to navigate his way through an endless labyrinth of mysteries. For anyone who hasn't read a Goddard novel before, this isn't a bad place to start, although I'd urge them to quickly move on to some of his earlier, better novels (as noted above.)

Rated somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars; because I'm a Goddard fan, I rounded up.

"Found Wanting" by Robert Goddard is a fast-paced thriller, although you wouldn't think so at the beginning. Goddard's chief character, Richard Eusden, approaching fifty and perfectly respectable, reports daily to his dead-end job in the British Foreign Office. Years ago he realized "he should never have become a civil servant ... he should have quit ... dropped out, travelled the world, searched for something else -- anything else -- to do with his life." With such deep-rooted discontent, he would never feel himself God's set man in London.

Richard had been best friends with Marty Hewitson since their early childhood on Britain's Isle of Wight. Marty's grandfather Clem Hewitson would regale them with not always believable tales about his world travels and supposed acquaintance with the Russian royal family. In school, both boys were smart but Marty, "the more naturally gifted," achieved success without effort. Their rivalry continued at Cambridge, where each was entranced by the bewitching Gemma Conway. Afterwards, Richard entered Civil Service, Marty went into TV journalism, and Gemma completed her Ph.D. Respectively, quite the stable, active, intellectual trinity. (It may be tempting and fun, but do not elevate the metaphor too far to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.)

The triangle continued into their personal lives. Gemma was more attracted to Marty, but he had gotten into drugs, so she married Richard, then chafed against their suburban conformity. Marty had been ITV's Man in the Middle East, coming back with a Lebanese girlfriend. The foursome dated for a time. Soon Marty's girlfriend reveals to Richard that Gemma has been seeing Marty. Gemma divorces Richard, marries Marty despite the drugs, and eventually also divorces him. Marty serves eighteen months for drug dealing, followed by fleeing the country after a second offense, leaving Richard stuck for the bail money. All the complications ended the threesome. They hadn't seen each other for years.

That could have been the end of it. Robert Goddard could have stopped his recountal right there and had a pretty good short story, but the tale was to take a simple sounding but decidedly dangerous turn. Gemma, who had become more attractive with time, tracks Richard down in London, telling him that Marty is dying and urgently needs his help. Why should he, Richard vexedly tells himself, pay attention to either one of them. But he relents. All Richard has to do is take a package of letters -- originally Grandfather Clem's -- to Marty in Brussels. "It's just a day trip, Richard. You'll be back this evening." Don't believe it.

Robert Goddard's plot construction is impeccable and his writing is as smooth and flowing as the opening of a symphony, but duplicities build upon duplicities and nothing is as it seems, right up until the tempo and strains of the dangerous ending. Goddard fully intentionally immerses the reader in the exotic spellings and diacriticals (at least to these American eyes) of the places that Richard is reluctantly forced to visit for his stricken friend. Goddard knows all the cities and locales very well. He uses many of them as book section and chapter titles. Richard's extended trip by train, plane, car, and ship is harrowing; Goddard's scenes are like being there: The "drive along" Birdcage Walk in London. The switch over to Hyde Park ("we can talk there"). A ferry ride to the Isle of Wight (with its long history of using "advanced British police methods"). Marty's getaway flight to Amsterdam. Belgium's BRUXELLES (Brussels). Germany's Hamburg and KÖLN (a "bone-cold evening in Cologne"). Denmark's ÅRHUS and KØBENHAVN (Copenhagen; noting "the modest scale of the Mermaid's statue"). And Sweden's Stockholm and ÖSTERSJÖN (Baltic Sea). Finland's Helsinki and ITÄMERI (Baltic Sea).

The secret cache of letters, that Richard Eusden is supposed to deliver, pervade the story like a Hitchcockian MacGuffin, attaining almost the level of Holy Writ. Many persons are willing to do anything, including killing, to gain possession of them. Chief among the seekers is the reclusive, secretive, and powerful owner of Mjollnir (roughly pronounced "my-all-ner"), who has his own strictly private reasons. In Norse mythology Mjollnir is the name of the god Thor's fearsome Hammer; the devilish owner lives up to the company name. Somehow Grandfather Clem's letters have revelations about the Russian Tsar's royal family, the Romanovs, their massacre, and the fate of the daughter Anastasia who was long purported to have escaped. Goddard's tale is complicated and intriguing, involving Anna Anderson, who for years claimed to be the missing princess. Danger is on virtually every page. Not for bedtime reading. But a nice ending.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 14 reviews  2.9 out of 5 stars