Into the Blue 1990 detective book

Name: Into the Blue
Rating: 4.6 (36 reviews)

Into the Blue (1990, United Kingdom)

Harry Barnett, a middle-aged man, lives in an exile on Rhodes Island in Greece for the past ten years. He became a caretaker for a holiday villa belonging to a politician, Alan Dysart, after his own business went bankrupt in the United Kingdom. When a young woman, Heather Mallender, visits the villa for a few weeks, Harry becomes her guide and the two seems to become quite close. But everything changes just a few days before Heather was supposed to return to her previous life in England. She asked Harry to take a trip to Profitis Ilias, but while they were climbing the mountain, he did not feel well enough to go on. Heather told Harry to stay behind while she will make the final part of the hike alone. Harry Barnett spent an hour waiting for Heather’s return before he decided to look for her. He climbed the last part, but there was no sign of her. He found her scarf on a tree branch and nothing else. Since it is off-season there are very few people around the mountain, so it took Harry some time to contact the authorities, but soon he became the prime suspect in the case.

Robert Goddard’s novel took a completely different approach to the story about a person that vanished - we see the world through eyes of a last person that saw her alive and well, we see how he has to find a way to convince the police and media he is not a killer and start his own investigation to what happened to Heather. The unusual element is the main character - a middle-aged man, who seems to have failed in everything he could have, from a personal life to his non-existent career. He does not aspire to be smart or deduct what has happened, all his weapons are stubbornness and naive faith in being a part of some bigger, divine plan. The plot is not dynamic, but it unveils layers of reality around Harry that he did not realize existed.

Can you solve a mystery like this one?

TRY IT YOURSELF ❱