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November 16, 2008
No Time For Goodbye - Linwood Barclay
No Time For Goodbye - Linwood Barclay
Book 36 in my 52 books in 52 weeks in 2008
Sometimes a book is so heavily promoted it's almost impossible for me to resist reading it. This thriller is a Richard and Judy book club pick. High literature it is not, but it was easy to read at my desk.
Some of the online reviews you might see, like the ones at the top of this page on Amazon are way over the top. The reader reviews are a lot more realistic however.
The plot has a great hook - a teenage girl (Cynthia) has a row with her parents and goes to bed, then in the morning her whole family have disappeared, never to return. Did she kill them? Were they murdered by someone else for some unknown reason? Did they just leave - and if so, why did they not take her?
Move on 25 years, and now Cynthia is married with a family, and starts to try and hunt down the truth herself. Lots of ideas, and it is quite fun for a while. But at the same time, it's also quite annoying. The logic is a bit silly. There are a couple of scenes with a medium who Cynthia thinks might help, but this is pointless for her and for us. Her husband seems clever sometimes, yet at others is very dim, all for the sake of the story - if he worked out the answer too quickly what would we do? This is bad, he should be more consistent.
The final chapters wrap things up quite well, and it's not a bad solution. but this is a holiday book, a bit of distraction for an airport lounge, not a great seat-of-the pants thriller.
Posted by se71 at November 16, 2008 12:01 PM
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