No Time for Goodbye

Linwood Barclay

Edition	Mass Market Paperback
List Price	$6.99
	$6.99 (Save 0%)

Published by	Bantam
Release date	2008-08-26
ISBN	0553590421
Availability	Usually ships in 24 hours

Fourteen-year-old Cynthia Bigge woke one morning to discover that her entire family?mother, father,brother?had vanished. No note, no trace, no return. Ever. Now, twenty-five years later, she?ll learn the devastating truth.

Sometimes it?s better not to know. . . .

Cynthia is happily married with a young daughter, a new family. But the story of her old family isn?t over. A strange car in the neighborhood, untraceable phone calls, ominous ?gifts??someone has returned to her hometown to finish what was started twenty-five years ago. And no one?s innocence is guaranteed, not even her own. By the time Cynthia discovers her killer?s shocking identity, it will again be too late . . . even for goodbye.

Customer Reviews - courtesy of Amazon.com ( Marked4Sale.com is not responsible for review content )

I read it all in one sitting, hooked me immediately....

I often read mysteries that hold my interest but it is a distinct pleasure to find one that continues to reveal plots twists and turns, including new characters (including one of my favorites, 32 chapters into this novel) which kept surprising me.
I started No Time for Goodbye in the kitchen, hoping it would be something that held my interest through lunch... and then found the tale of a teenage girl whose entire family vanishes overnight so well-written that I didn't stop reading for the rest of the day. This is a very rare experience for me since I don't generally lead a life of leisure...and yet I didn't feel a moment of guilt. I was having way too much fun, caught up in this tale of suspense and intrigue.

Besides the superb writing, the book stands out for its unique point of view, told by a man who marries the grown-up woman who used to be the teen girl, still haunted by her family's disappearance, all those years ago.

What makes this one rise so far above the norm - and the genre- are the risks taken by the author. He continues to reveal depths in compelling characters rather late in the book (one of my favorites, Vince Fleming, really comes into his own in Chapter 32, although he does make an appearance earlier). The author's ear for dialogue, often witty, is accurate and I didn't sense a false note in any of his characters.

But the story, of course, is what made this one get raves from readers and critics alike. A woman haunted by her past, her marriage tested by the stress and her husband a very human and flawed individual who wants to trust his wife but doesn't know where to find the truth. Although this is a mystery novel, I felt it also focused deeply on the limits in relationships, questions about "how well" any of us know even those we love deeply and more. It is haunting and it made me want to hold my family close after reading it.

Wanted to make it 3 1/2 stars

I was drawn to this book by the blurb on the back because the plot looked interesting and unique - and it was. For the most part, this was a good book and I enjoyed reading it. I would give it a firm 3 1/2 stars in an Amazon review for that alone. I just had a couple of problems that kept me from giving it 4 or higher. First, as someone said already, the plot is telegraphed clearly in the first 25 pages. I caught it and had everything figured out before I was halfway through the book. It was also easy to forsee the convenient twist at the end so there were no surprises there. It's just not a tight enough plot and for that reason, I couldn't give it high marks. I also need to tell anyone who is sensitive in this area, the profanity is excessive from the first page to the last. I can take a reasonable amount of it but in this book, it was just over-the-top for me, so be warned if that's a problem for you. Frankly, I don't quite understand why a talented author feels he or she has to drench a book in that unless it's character-appropriate.

Resolving a 25 year old mystery

Cynthia Bigge is a 14 year old who went on a date with a high school senior who is connected to crime, gets roaring drunk, and when confronted by her father, she has a huge argument with her parents and stomps off to bed to sleep off the drunkeness. When she wakes up, her whole family is gone.

Twenty five years later, Cynthia is married and is raising her own daughter when she starts getting clues about her family. Having undergone such a traumatic experience when she was young has poisoned her outlook and she seems unstable. These clues from the past threaten to destabilize her further. Her husband tells us the story from his perspective and it is easy to see how the various clues and hints that appear out of seemingly nowhere are creating a sense of desperation with Cynthia.

Of course the Archers get the police involved and when they do not do much, the Archers get a private detective involved. The detective ends up getting killed as does Cynthia's only remaining family member - her aunt Tess. This gets the husband mobilized and he starts looking for clues as to what is going on.

While all this is going on, the author threw in an interesting literary device. At the end of every chapter there is a section in which two other people are talking. It is not clear immediately who they might be, but as the story progresses, it is clear that these are people who are involved in the story line. After a little bit, one gets the impression that these people are probably Cynthia's long lost mother and brother, but you are never quite sure till the end who they really are.

The story evolves at a rapid pace and there are some good action sequences as well as an increasing sense of foreboding that builds over Cynthia and her daughter Grace. This mystery thriller positively haunted you as one more layer of information was provided and then another until you reach the explosive ending. It was a great, fun, read, and only the last few chapters made me take one star away. That was because of the parallel plot and twist that were introduced that involve a character that appears in the book as a friend, but ends up being something compeletely different. I felt that this tenuous plot device was unnecessary and detracted from the story line.

I highly recommend this book and enjoyed the very final plot twist - which was a tearjerker!

A page turner!

I could hardly put this book down. I loved it! This is a first book by Barclay that I have read and I hope to read more soon. It kept me guessing at everything and I was so anxious to find out why the girl was left alone.

Now to order another of Barclays books and hope it will be as great as this one.

Slow Start but Nice Read Overall

"No Time For Goodbye" is an engaging read for the most part, although it does take some time to truly get going. Linwood Barclay does a great job of developing the characters and making the reader actually care about them, something that should not be taken for granted as so many authors seem to fail in this regard. The multi-level plotline is terrific right up to the very end.

The major downfall of this book is the fact that it does drag quite a bit in its first half, as Barclay attempts to set his stage. Some of this setup falls into the empty filler category. A good chunk of the first half could be eliminated without taking too much away from the final product. Also, the writing itself, including the dialog between the characters, is somewhat banal. This simplistic style tends to make the book drag at times, leaving the reader wondering where it is headed.

The flaws are not enough to completely take away from the overall quality of the book; it is a compelling read and worth the time if you are patient with it from the start.