No Time For Goodbye By Linwood Barclay

I have never heard of Linwood Barclay until I came across his novel No Time For Goodbye while browsing the books on sale at Popular Bookstore recently. After reading the reviews on the back cover, I decided to buy it as it was only selling at RM8. And I am so glad I did!

No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay

The premise is excellent: 14 year old Cynthia Bigge is dragged home one night by her father Clayton Bigge after he catches her drinking and making out with Vince Fleming,  a 17-year-old boy,  in the boy’s car. Back in her house, she has a big quarrel with her parents and wishes them all dead. The next morning she wakes to an empty house with her mother, her father and her brother all gone. There is no note from them to explain why they have left.

Fast forward 25 years. Cynthia Bigge, now Cynthia Archer, is married to Terrence Archer and has a daughter Grace. The disappearance of her family still affects her and she is seeing a psychiatrist on a regular basis. She also has to cope with insinuations that she may have something to do with her family’s disappearance.

Her husband, Terry is torn between wanting to believe his wife and struggling with the fact that she might be losing it. The stress has taken over, he’s sure and he is afraid that she might be imagining the things that are happening.

After the disappearance of her family, Cynthia was raised by her aunt, Tess Berman.  Tess revealed to Terrence that for several years, she received envelopes filled with cash from an unknown source for Cynthia’s education.

Cynthia decides to hire Denton Abagnall, a private detective, to investigate the disappearance of her family. Shortly after that, her aunt Tess was brutally murdered. Denton also met the same fate.

It then became a race against time to find out the truth about her family’s disappearance as it was evident that she is next on the murderer’s hit list. Sorry….I won’t reveal anything more as it will spoil your enjoyment of the book.

No Time For Goodbye is a terrific page-turner that keeps me in suspense until the very end. It just flies off the page.