Tariq Goddard is already a favourite author. Having read his previous three titles, I was prepared for a good read. What I was not prepared for was staying up for two consecutive nights to finish his latest. It is indeed a metaphysical horror for a modern time. Set in the "Me Decade" of the Eighties and smack dab in the English Countryside, the story is uniquely told with Goddard's voice and pacing.

It's not until the experience of reading this has come to the last few pages that the realisation sinks in that this is a morality tale for the age that has very little to do with specific sins as outlined in any religious text.

I highly recommend this work to anyone looking for an entertaining reading experience with the added plus of a thoughtful and metaphysical subtext.

There is a complete review of The Picture Of Contented New Wealth on our website.

This is definitely on the list of "wish we had published it!"

Susan G.
Ed. ( )

Although this is only his fourth book, Tariq Goddard is one of my favourite authors. This book is rather different in its subject matter from his previous work which covered the Spanish Civil War, football in Soviet-era Moscow, and village life in England after the Second World War. This one is an intellectual horror story set in the 1980s. The plot involves a couple who live in a creepy old house, and the wife seems to be possessed. The descriptions of the possession are eery and disturbing - the obvious comparision being The Turn of the Screw. Besides the horror, the book contains a lot of big ideas, about God, evil and consumerism, and this makes the book more than just a spooky tale, but never weighs the story down too much so it always remains readable. ( )