Caught in the Light

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: I've only recently 'discovered' the author Robert Goddard and this is the third book I've read by him. It was fantastic, I particularly liked the flashbacks to the 1820s relating to the history of photography, it was so convincing that you wondered what was fact and what was fiction. You develop a real affinity with the main character Ian and are devastaed by the turn of events at the end - well worth reading!

Rating:
Summary: Addictive
Review: Mr. Goddard's done it again: "Caught in the light" is one of those books you simply can't put down until you reached the back cover. The book is written in the finest Goddard tradition, history interwoven with the present and a protagonist chasing the elusive truth for hundreds of pages.

Rating:
Summary: A Sensational Read !
Review: One of the best books Robert Goddard has written to date. A mystery from start to finish. Full of twists and turns. The past entangled with the present. Full of intrigue.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, mysterious, intriguing, exciting, sad
Review: Robert Goddard is a genius - in his books, nothing is what it seems. Of all his books (yes, I have read them all), this has the best twist. But this is also his saddest book - there were tears in my eyes towards the end. No one in the world writes like Robert Goddard - his words penetrate to the soul and touch the heart.

Rating:
Summary: Is it possible or not?
Review: Robert Goddard is an exceptional writer who has the ability to make you question the things in which you may or may not believe. His only downfall here was that he almost made the cast of characters too large to keep track of, especially when one of them keeps using different names. However, his description of Eris Moberly's/Marian Esguard's fugue states and forays into the past is so believable you can almost conceptualize being there. The characters and events are so intricately woven you sometimes can't tell where one ends and another begins. Definitely not a fast-paced thriller, but a book to be read slowly and savored right to the last page.

Rating:
Summary: Is it possible or not?
Review: Robert Goddard is an exceptional writer who has the ability to make you question the things in which you may or may not believe. His only downfall here was that he almost made the cast of characters too large to keep track of, especially when one of them keeps using different names. However, his description of Eris Moberly's/Marian Esguard's fugue states and forays into the past is so believable you can almost conceptualize being there. The characters and events are so intricately woven you sometimes can't tell where one ends and another begins. Definitely not a fast-paced thriller, but a book to be read slowly and savored right to the last page.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling: even in the light things are not what they seem
Review: The first Goddard I read. The metaphor of light reflected from his previous novels - Painting the Darkness, Into the Blue, In Pale Batallions. Light even plays an important role in the cover drawings in the Corgi editions of Borrowed Time and Out of the Sun. A web of intrigue enters the life of a photographer, and all he meet are eventually seen, in another light, to be working for his downfall. Worth a transit through Gatwick or Heathrow to buy, but now easily available through Amazon. As with other Goddards, the people seem "normal," and that is what makes the possibility of hidden forces reaching out and turning life upside down seem so convincing.

Rating:
Summary: CAUGHT IN THE LIGHT
Review: THIS IS THE FOURTH BOOK I'VE READ FROM GODDARD'S STRING OF PRECIOUS BOOKS, HAVING PREVIOSLY BEEN INTRIGUED BY 'PAST CARING', 'INTO THE BLUE', 'TAKE NO FAREWELL'. ALL HIS BOOKS ARE INCREDIBILE, AND FURTHER ENHANCED IN THEIR VALUE BY AN EXQUISITE, RICH USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I HAVE JUST FINISHED READING 'CAUGHT IN THE LIGHT' ... VERY MYSTERIOUS, SPELLBOUNDING AND IMAGINATIVE LIKE ALL HIS SERIES, EVEN THOUGH AT TIMES A TEENY WEENY BIT CONFUSING AND NOT AS REALISTIC AS I WOULD HAVE EXPECTED FROM GODDARD. I THOUGHT THE STORYTELLING WAS INTELLIGENTLY WEAVED THROUGH A SPRINKLING OF WELL RESEARCHED HISTORICAL DOCUMENTATION OF PHOTOGHRAPHY. I GAVE IT 4 STARS BECAUSE I THOUGHT THAT THE CHARACTERS WERE TOO SLIPPERY, ESPECIALLY ERIS AND COULD HAVE PERHAPS BEEN MORE FOCUSED. HOWEVER THE THEME OF BETRAYAL, MALICE AND REVENGE WERE GIVEN THE CUNNING TWIST THAT KEPT ME HOOKED TILL THE LAST PAGE. THE FINALE WAS SURPRISING AND IS WORTH CRAVING FOR. DO NOT SKIP PAGES OR PEEP AT THE LAST THREE CHAPTERS!

Rating:
Summary: A Shaggy Dog Story
Review: This was a wonderful book up until the last section where it seemed as if the author had written himself into a corner. It was almost as if someone else, someone in a hurry to be done with it all, had finished the story. The cleverness and imaginativeness of the rest of the book were swept unconvincingly aside leaving the reader feeling cheated for having been carried along only to find that the author apparently grew bored or unable to explain what he had so masterfully begun. He halfheartedly answered a few questions raised and then got bored and wrote "the end."