No Time for Goodbye
by Linwood Barclay
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.22 You Save: $3.77 (47%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of No Time for Goodbye
Book Review: captivating, interesting, and logical
Summary: 4 Stars
A fourteen-year old girl misbehaves. She dates a seventeen year-old boy, a son of a known criminal, against the will of her parents. She lies to her parents, hiding the fact that she dates him. Her secret is revealed. Her father goes out to find her late at night. He grabs her from her boyfriend's car, bringing her home. She is fast asleep, drunk, pissed and tired.
The following morning she wakes up. The usual morning sounds - kitchen, dishes, shower - are absent. The house is quiet. Very quiet. She goes downstairs to the kitchen. No one is there. The kitchen is clean, as if no one ate breakfast yet. She goes to her parents' bedroom. It is empty. She goes to her brother's room. Nobody is in the house. She looks for a note, explaining this emptiness. There is no note.
She goes to school, thinking that by the time she returns home, her family will be back. She does not know what to think. In the afternoon, she returns to an empty home. Now she is really worried. She goes to her neighbor, who saw or heard nothing. They call the police. An investigation starts.
Twenty-five years later, the girl who grew up to be a married woman and a mother, receives a voice from the past. She and her husband embark on a mission to discover what had happened on that tragic night.
The first 100 pages of this book are somewhat difficult to follow. But as you advance with the reading, the book does not let you go. It is captivating, interesting, and logical, despite the seemingly illogical happenings that unfold. An entertaining read for the last days of the summer.
Book Review: Harlan Coben Lovers...Here's A Perfect Book For You!
Summary: 4 Stars
Like Harlan Coben, Linwood Barclay is an author that I see on alot of the retail bookshelves these days so I decided to give him a try. Now I know why Coben and Barclay share the valuable shelf space...because their plots and writing styles are basically from the same mold. If I read this book with no cover then I would have immediately screamed "this is Harlan Coben"!
These type of mysteries are what I call "you-or-me" mysteries. They usually deal with the everyday Tom or Sue who wakes up one day and "whammo, it's not going to be a good day"! The you-or-me protagonist usually is directly involved in a majority of the investigation while the police detective is more of a secondary character. The plot is backward-logical whereby the beginning makes perfect sense by the end.
In this book, Cynthia Bigge wakes up one day to find her house empty and her family gone (a plot that has brewed in my head for years). Fast forward 25 years and Cynthia and her husband get involved in digging deeper into the mystery. Along the way, the reader picks up a piece of the puzzle and tries to fit into into the storyboard.
IMO, Harlan Coben is good but overrated. I usually rate his books as with a solid four stars but usally don't feel her deserves a five. Same for this book by Linwood Barclay. I will try another book by him but I hear they are all similar with the Coben-esque style.
I don't think you will be disappointed and maybe you will really enjoy it but I am a reader looking for more wow and impact.
Book Review: This was Great and I am Tough Sell
Summary: 5 Stars
I have always read and watched a lot of thrillers and mysteries. By this point, decades later, I am a hard sell on giving anyone five stars. I've gotten to the point where not very far in I can guess what is going on and "solve" it. This is not brilliance. This is formula. Most of these writers have very similar plots and even similar characters. So after awhile you get the hang of "who done it."
This book started off with a very interesting premise. A fourteen year old high school girl wakes up one morning to find her parents and brother gone. It turns out this is not temporary. There is absolutely no evidence about what happened to them, no note, no blood, no bodies, no mess, NOTHING. After awhile, everyone gives up on the disappearance and the girl moves in with her aunt to finish her schooling. The book then moves ahead 25 years and this girl is now a married woman with her own daughter in the same town. She still has absolutely no idea of what happened to any of them.
However, what we open with 25 years later is her doing a news show about unsolved crimes for television. This is broadcast nationally and things start happening to her, her husband and her daughter. The story is told first person from her husband's point of view. It was a very good idea to shift it to his viewpoint when we make the time shift. It is a much more interesting story.
I highly recommend this thriller. I wasn't able to put it down.
Book Review: No Time for Hello Either
Summary: 4 Stars
This story is as tightly woven as a Christmas sweater. (That's supposed to be a compliment.) Author Linwood Barclay leads the reader along several trails to a fascinating conclusion that ties up all loose ends (or threads).
The plot centers on Cynthia Archer who, as a fourteen-year-old, had a spat with her father because she was out drinking with a seventeen-year-old with a bad boy rep. Her father confronted her, ordered her out of the boy's car, and took her home. After she got home, Cynthia fell into an angry, drunken sleep. When she awoke, her parents and her brother had disappeared without a trace.
Fast forward twenty-five years and the still unsolved disappearance is revisited when a local tabloid-type T.V. show does a feature on the mystery. Thus begins a lightning fast read.
The story is narrated by Cynthia's husband Terry, who learns that very little is what it seems. Barclay builds a "tangled web." Any hints might spoil it, but suffice it to say that Barclay's tale sometimes skates on the edge of believability. But he never crosses the line into fantasy land. And the book reflects a sharp insight into human nature. There are several good chuckles to boot.
The only substantial flaw is the dropping of enough f and s bombs to, it seems to me, shock most readers. There's a lot of tension and explosive excitement, so one would expect some salty language. But it's really excessive and distracting here.
Book Review: What if you woke up....
Summary: 5 Stars
And your family was nowhere to be found? In Linwood Barclay's novel, "No Time for Goodbye", Cynthia Bigge a 14 year old teenager, wakes up after a night out with the local town bad boy with a ripping hangover and stumbles down the stairs to find her family has vanished. There is no note from her mom and dad no word from her older brother Todd. They have all vanished into thin air.
Move forward 25 years later on the anniversary of the family disappearance, and Cynthia is now married and is a mother to a young 8 year old daughter. Disturbing events begin to bring the disappearance back into Cynthia's life again - not that the events have ever really left her. Her husband Terry, tells the story as the events unfold.
Family memento's begin turning up in Cynthia and Terry's house, mysterious notes are left inside their house, and mysterious phone calls and messages are left.
Will Cynthia ever discover where her family is and will the mystery be solved? Enticing leads are sprinkled throughout the story as the author leads the reader down a path only to introduce a new twist which leaves the reader wondering if Cynthia has lost her mind or if her family is out there somewhere waiting for Cynthia.
I have just begun to read Linwood Barclay's different stories. They are fantastic.