Linwood Barclay - No Time For Goodbye

Reviewed by showhost on 26th Nov
Linwood Barclay - No Time For Goodbye Nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award, the Barry Award, and short-listed as best novel by the International Thriller Writers

Well I went into the library looking for something to read, something which would grab my interest. Ro recommended this Linwood Barclay book and I have to say it did just what I wanted.
So, how would you feel? You're 14 yrs old, a teenage rebel, been out with a boy your parents don't like and had way too many drinks. You're in the car with him when your father comes along and drags you out & takes you home. You go to bed , are ill & flake out!
You wake up next morning with a terrific hangover and creep to the bathroom waiting for the row that will ensue with your parents but all is quiet. Thankfully you creep back, get dressed ready for school, then go down to face the music. But there is nobody in the kitchen, or the lounge, or the bedrooms and the family cars have gone. So, maybe Mum has taken brother to school - early. but there is no note from Mum, she always leaves a note before she goes anywhere.
But hey, you go to school thinking they will all be there when you get back but - they aren't and brother doesn't show for classes. In fact they never show up again! All this happens to Cynthia. Cynthia who was brought up and cared for by her mothers sister.
25 years later, Cynthia - married with a young child - decides to go on a TV show to appeal to anyone out there who may have known what happened that day. Cynthia has lived with the stigma & trauma of that day, the police wondering if she had killed them for if intruders had taken and murdered them why had they left her? Had her family had enough of her and just gone? If so why have they not been in touch since? Her long suffering husband, Terry, was against her going on the show, thought no good would come of it. Then the letter arrived.
Cynthia sees her family in strangers & hears them, Just lately, she feels they are being stalked. Cars following them, she worries for the safety of her daughter. Then stranger things start to happen, her dads hat appears on their kitchen table, an email is sent. Terry begins to wonder if his wife is losing the plot and sending these things to herself. He starts to doubt her. Cynthia hires a private detective. When a murder occurs and a letter directs them to the lake in which the car which had been driven by her mother, 25 years ago is found, the police are now involved and are pointing the finger at Cynthia.
Up to here it was riveting stuff, even to the point that Cynthia takes off with her daughter. But alas, the story then wanes and I was let down by the ending, it was disappointing and ridiculous (even though I could sense it was getting silly I still had to keep reading it!). What a shame! Such a clever idea gone awry.

Quote from another reviewer: 'ending ruined a very promising book novel suddenly seems to come to a grinding halt about 100 pages from the end when Linwood Barclay explains the entire mystery in one huge clump of a chapter'.