![]() ![]() ![]() Unlike the two earlier works familiar to me, which performed "period" sleight of hand (in "Painting the Darkness," Goddard even went so far as to create the amazing effect of a pitch-perfect Victorian sensation novel), "Into the Blue" is resolutely contemporary. "Into the Blue" is sheerly fun and completely respectable, a book that will push the edges of late-night fatigue and at the same time never embarrass you when you have to explain those circles under your eyes. ![]() ![]() In his fourth such outing Robert Goddard, whose earlier neo-Fowlesian achievements "In Pale Battalions" and "Painting the Darkness" had me utterly spellbound and buttonholing editor friends to ask, "Who is this guy?" now does it again, I'm delighted to report. It's not for want of trying, however, and any new "popular" novelist with a fat book and intellectual pretensions is almost certain to be compared by weary copywriters to John Fowles, if, indeed, said writer has the slightest taste for the labyrinthine. When it comes to cracking good literate entertainment, what you might call potboilers for smart people, the publishing industry usually - sadly - fails to deliver the goods. ![]()
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