Entertaining escapism!
If you read for fun with little expectation of depth, profundity, earth solid thinking, Linwood Barclay is your author. His Zack Walker series is pure adult escapism, light, delightful and enjoyable entertainment.
Linwood Barclay was a Toronto Star writer who turned to writing books, successfully. He has written more than two dozen books, many of which have been very popular. Trust Your Eyes, The Accident, and Never Look Away are among the best.
Stone Rain
#4 in the series in which he features the Metropolitan newspaper writer, Zack Walker, who seems to always stumble into murder cases as if he is cursed with bad luck.
This story uses the same plot style which is predictable and anticipatory development but the story is totally new and well worth the reading time because Barclay has polished his craft really well.
In this story, a professional dominatrix in the suburbs, Trixie, who Zack has befriended regardless of her profession. But when he discovers a dead body strapped to one of Trixie’s bondage apparatuses, the story takes on a great turn.
Zack is implicated in a murder; Trixie is missing, and everything Zack thought he knew about his friend, his town, even his own marriage, reveals a darker side. Zack’s twisted trail to the truth will lead to a long-unsolved triple homicide, bikers, drug wars, and a stone-cold killer hell-bent on revenge. It’s a story that’s already cost him his job and possibly his wife, and, if Zack’s not very lucky, it will cost him his life.
Polished and entertaining
Barclay is fun to read. His style is never overly pedantic, or super sophisticated. Dialogues are realistic, characters plausible and authentic in feel, suspense is maintained but more at the level of curiosity rather than the hold on to your seat a la Baldacci or Patterson.
In short, this particular Barclay novel is an adult comic book. It entertains. It diverts. It satisfies.
A very nice book to filling in the time on a beach, in a chaise lounger, or by a crackling fire with soft music.
