Excellent Quotes: Into the Blue

British mystery writer, Robert Goddard has the full support of American horror guru, Steven King, whose Top Ten lists in Entertainment Weekly magazine never fail to provide good fodder for yours truly. As per usual, I have been loving my Uncle Stevie's recommendation. After two books, I'd say that Goddard--no relation to the father of modern rocketry--appears to focus on middle-aged, amateur detectives whose sojourns in the dark side of life to solve inventive mysteries reconnect them to a lost sense of purpose and help them come to grips with aging. The stories see them reinventing a sense of personal relevance that does not rely on youthful vitality or the wide-open promise of their salad days.

Not surprisingly, these protagonists tend to start out on page one woefully adrift and self-pitying. Goddard has found a way to put the point perfectly. In the offices of a psychiatrist, Harry, the sad-sack hero of Into the Blue squints through a haze of casual alcoholism and diffuse lust for a missing woman many years his junior:

"In what way did you like her?"

How to answer? Harry stared up at the ceiling and followed with his eye the pattern of the covering.

"We just hit it off together," he replied lamely. "Allowing for the generation gap, we found we had a surprising amount in common. Both of us are misfits, really, aren't we?"

"Are you?"

"Oh, yes. Coming home's taught me that. I've no family apart from my mother, no job, no money, no property, no prospects. As far as I can see, England doesn't welcome a prodigal son like me."

"That sounds rather like self-pity."

"It is, I suppose. But when nobody else feels sorry for you, you tend to feel sorry for yourself, don't you?"

-Goddard, Robert. Into the Blue. New York (NY): Delta, 2006. Pp. 211-12.

PS - I LOVE it when I find a new author who has a whole cannon I had been previously unaware of. This is the same effect as finding out that you can obsessively watch, say, Season One of "Lost" on DVD in a week and that there are still 5 more seasons to come. (Not that I am hoping to get any gifts in particular for Christmas.) Oh, and Jimmy Lafave's "Hideaway Girl" is wonderful; now playing on iTunes (Thanks to Anne for the KGSR hookup).