After unsuccessful attempts at careers in both journalism and teaching, he worked for a time as an educational administrator in Devon before becoming a full-time novelist.

Goddard's 1990 book Into the Blue was the inaugural winner of the W H Smith Thumping Good Read Award, presented to the best new fiction author of the year.

Goddard's 1997 book Beyond Recall was nominated for the Edgar Award Best Novel prize but lost out to Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark.

Harry Barnett also appears in both of Goddard's two published short stories, one of which, Toupee for a Bald Tyre, is set in 1970 before the events of the books.

In an interview, he said "The TV version of Into the Blue was a travesty of the story I wrote and I am determined that any future adaptations should be more faithful to the original".