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Hand in Glove

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Tristram Abberley was an English poet of the 1930s whose reputation was sealed when he died fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Nearly fifty years later his sister Beatrix is murdered during what appears to be a robbery at her home, but robbery - it transpires - is only part of the motive that underlies her death. Beatrix is the victim of a dark conspiracy, one that her loved ones are powerless to defeat.
But nothing is quite as it seems in a Robert Goddard novel. In a narrative that moves between Cheltenham and New York, Paris and rural Wales, Tunbridge Wells and wartime Spain, the conspirators themselves are caught up in a chain of dramatic events that are the consequences of meddling in the dark secrets of the legendary poet.
When I wrote Hand in Glove, back in the early 1990s, literary copyright extended to fifty years after the author’s death. It’s since been extended to seventy-five years. If you’ve ever wondered why publishers suddenly announce that it’s time to reconsider the appeal of some long dead author you’d forgotten about, check how long they’ve been dead. Chances are they’ve just emerged from copyright and are therefore up for grabs, with no need to pay their descendants for the right to publish their work.
I’m not complaining about this. Fifty years seems generous to me, let alone seventy-five. What I did sense, however, when I first became aware of copyright law for authors, was that there was a plot for a thriller to be found in its arcane ramifications. A literary estate can be a lucrative source of income for relatives of the dead author, something they’re bound to miss when copyright expires. So, what lengths might they be prepared to go to prevent copyright expiring? And how might they set about doing so? Suffice to say there is one sure way to extend copyright and that’s what one grasping relative in this novel decides to do.
Unfortunately for him or her (I don’t want to give anything away here), copyright in this particular dead author enfolds a mystery best left undisturbed. Soon, the royalties that were the object of the exercise seem unimportant, as murder and mayhem intrude into stockbroker belt lives. This story appears to be ending halfway through, but that is only because there is an invisible other half of the story waiting to surprise the characters - and you, the reader.
What could our famous dead author and sometime member of the International Brigade have to do with the loss of the Spanish gold reserve, naively despatched by the Republican government early in the Spanish Civil War to Soviet Russia for safekeeping? The answer, naturally, is plenty.
'Combines the steely edge of a thriller with the suspense of a whodunnit, all interlaced with subtle romantic overtones'
Time Out
'Cliff-hanging entertainment'
Guardian
'A brilliant writer of suspense'
Daily Mail