Caught in the Light - Hardcover

When photographer Ian Jarrett, on assignment in snowy Vienna, meets and falls in love with a mysterious woman named Marian Esguard, the sex is terrific and their future back in England looks happy. Jarrett walks out on his wife and 15-year-old daughter and goes off to await his new lover. But she doesn't show up, and Jarrett decides to track her down. In the process he unearths an out-of-this-world mystery: Marian may well be a ghost from the past (and a ghost with a grudge). That would certainly explain why none of the pictures of Marian come out. During the 19th century, a woman of the same name claimed to have discovered the techniques of modern photography, but she never received the credit for it.

Quickly--perhaps a little too quickly--other people appear on the scene to explain the unexplainable. There's the London psychotherapist who has been treating Eris Moberly (the woman who calls herself Marian Esguard); there's a slick financier with a shadowy background and unknown motives. But despite these secondary characters popping out of the woodwork, Goddard is a master craftsman: he lures us into his fun house expertly, then guides us through the dark tunnels, cackling madly. An added bonus is a reverence for the history of photography, which lights up the story. --Dick Adler