Past Caring by Robert Goddard

About the book

At a luxurious villa on the sun-soaked island of Madeira, unemployed historian Martin Radford is given a second chance. Martin is shown the leather-bound journal of another ruined man, former British cabinet minister Edwin Strafford.

Martin is offered a job—to return to England and investigate the rise and fall of Strafford, an ambitious young politician whose downfall, in 1910, is as mysterious as the strange deaths that still haunt his family.

Martin is intrigued. Strafford resigned at the height of his career, disappearing from the public eye. The woman he loved, for whom he was willing to sacrifice everything, suddenly and coldly rejected him. All the reasons for his fall from grace are shrouded in darkness.

Martin’s investigations trigger a violent series of events, throwing him straight into the path of those who believed they had escaped punishment for crimes long past but never paid for . . . And Martin himself may find that he must risk his life to discover the truth.

What I thought

Wow, this book was so good. I’ve read Robert Goddard’s two latest books The Fine Art of Invisible Detection and This Is The Night They Come For You and enjoyed them very much even though crime fiction isn’t my go-to genre. So when I spotted this on Kindle Prime I thought I’d give it a try. This was the author’s debut novel, first published in 1986 and nominated for the Booker Prize. I didn’t know this when I picked it out to read, indeed it might even have put me off reading it, since I never find the books that are nominated all that appealing. Since then it’s been republished in paperback in 2010 and more recently by Joffe Books in e-book in 2020.

At 530 pages according to the Amazon listing, it is longer than your average book and I did find it quite a marathon getting through it, but I never found it boring. When I mentioned on Twitter that I was going to read it I did get a bit of a mixed reaction, certainly of Goddard’s older books, with some saying they’d read previous books but thought them a bit long winded. I must admit that had you given me this book with no indication of who had written it, I would never have associated it with his latest books, and would certainly never have guessed it was the same author. In some ways this is quite a literary novel, perhaps why it was nominated for the Booker Prize.

So to the plot. Well, this is why it is such a long book. Firstly, the book is set in two different periods, 1910 and the present day actually being 1977. As you see from the blurb, Martin, an ex history teacher and historian is tasked with trying to find out what happened to one of the main characters in the book Edwin Strafford, a cabinet minister and young rising politician who suddenly gave it all up in mysterious circumstances for which there seemed no obvious reason. The first part of the book is really a book within a book, because it’s a memoir written by Strafford. We’re taken back to 1910 and the politics of the day with mentions of Churchill, Lloyd George and other famous names from the past. I found it absolutely fascinating, if a little bit difficult to follow.

The writing is so good, very evocative of the time period, especially with the characters being from the upper middle classes. Though to be honest I have never had to look up the meaning of so many words and was glad it was an e-book so I could just tap on the word to bring up the dictionary. I also had to do a little bit of Googling on the subject of the Boer war, as I had no knowledge of that, other than having heard of it.

Anyway, to cut a very long story short I just loved everything about this book. I personally wouldn’t describe it as a thriller, much more a deep mystery with many twists and turns. Lots of really not very nice people, intrigue, betrayals, lies, fraud, pretty much your every day, present day politics really. Beautifully written and with a great understanding of human nature. The ending was tense and gripping, but very sad too. So glad I read it, I enjoyed it very much.