If you are a dedicated Canadian author fan, you always win with Linwood Barclay. The former Toronto Star columnist began writing books and found it was more to his liking than the ragtag non-stop stress and deadline pressures of a regular newspaper columnist’s life. And it’s a lucky thing for book lovers he chose his new calling.
FEAR THE WORST
Linwood Barclay
Synopsis
Your daughter doesn’t come home one night from her summer job.
You go there looking for her. No one’s seen her. But it’s worse than that.
No one’s ever seen her. So where has she been going every day? And where is she now?
In Linwood Barclay’s riveting new thriller, an ordinary man’s desperate search for his daughter leads him into a dark world of corruption, exploitation, and murder. Tim Blake is about to learn that the people you think you know best are the ones harbouring the biggest secrets.
Tim is an average guy. He sells cars. He has an ex-wife. She’s moved in with a man whose moody son spends more time online than he should. His girlfriend is turning out to be a bit of a flake. It’s not a life without hassles, but nothing will prepare Tim for the nightmare that’s about to begin.
Sydney vanishes into thin air. At the hotel where she supposedly worked, no one has ever heard of her. Even her closest friends seem to be at a loss. Now, as the days pass without a word, Tim must face the fact that not only is Sydney missing, but that the daughter he’s loved and thought he knew is a virtual stranger.
As he retraces Sydney’s steps, Tim discovers that the suburban Connecticut town he always thought of as idyllic is anything but. What he doesn’t know is that his every move is being watched. There are others who want to find Syd as much as Tim does.
But they’re not planning a Welcome Home party.
The closer Tim comes to the truth, the closer he comes to every parent’s worst nightmare—and the kind of evil only a parent’s love has a chance in hell of stopping.
Richard’s writes…
This may not be one of Barclay’s best; many characters, many scene changes, a lot of dialogue causes confusion. The reader must sporadically remind themselves where they are in the story and what’s going on.
This is an entertaining bit of fluff, a who done it story about his daughter who goes missing and who no one seems to have ever seen. If you’re a parent, this book might be mesmerizing read. Otherwise, the book is a mechanical and lock-step story which lulls the reader from time to time and at other times, builds up tension and suspense as one eagerly reads on to see what is happening next.
3 1/2 stars, a worthwhile diversion.
