Product Description

On the morning she will never forget, suburban teenager Cynthia Archer awakes with a nasty hangover and a feeling she is going to have an even nastier confrontation with her mom and dad. But when she leaves her bedroom, she discovers the house is empty, with no sign of her parents or younger brother Todd. In the blink of an eye, without any explanation, her family has simply disappeared. Twenty-five years later Cynthia is still haunted by unanswered questions. Were her family murdered? If so, why was she spared? And if they're alive, why did they abandon her in such a cruel way? Now married with a daughter of her own, Cynthia fears that her new family will be taken from her just as her first one was. And so she agrees to take part in a TV documentary revisiting the case, in the hope that somebody somewhere will remember something - or even that her father, mother or brother might finally reach out to her... Then a letter arrives which makes no sense and yet chills Cynthia to the core. And soon she begins to realise that stirring up the past could be the worst mistake she has ever made...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Review
"a fast-moving roller-coaster of a read" (Emma Lee-Potter DAILY EXPRESS )

"Barclay's enjoyably creepy tale...certainly keeps one turning the pages" (TIMES )

Synopsis
On the morning she will never forget, suburban teenager Cynthia Archer awakes with a nasty hangover and a feeling she is going to have an even nastier confrontation with her mom and dad. But when she leaves her bedroom, she discovers the house is empty, with no sign of her parents or younger brother Todd. In the blink of an eye, without any explanation, her family has simply disappeared. Twenty-five years later Cynthia is still haunted by unanswered questions. Were her family murdered? If so, why was she spared? And if they're alive, why did they abandon her in such a cruel way? Now married with a daughter of her own, Cynthia fears that her new family will be taken from her just as her first one was. And so she agrees to take part in a TV documentary revisiting the case, in the hope that somebody somewhere will remember something - or even that her father, mother or brother might finally reach out to her...Then a letter arrives which makes no sense and yet chills Cynthia to the core. And soon she begins to realise that stirring up the past could be the worst mistake she has ever made...

About the Author
Linwood Barclay is married with two children and lives in Toronto. He has written a popular column for the Toronto Star since 1993.

Customer Reviews

No time for anything else....
I couldn't put this book down. I really had no time for anything else whilst reading this.

A bit of a poor end to the story but a great read up till then. A real thought provoking plot with the story told from the husband's point of view, which made a nice change to the usual third person narration.

Highly recommended read chosen by Richard & Judy.

Schmaltzy Ending.
No Time For Goodbye

I have to say, I enjoyed this book immensly as a page-turning sun-bed read. My only real critisism is the last page. What a load of rubbish. You'd have to read the book to understand what I mean, but basically, we are supposed to believe that after her 14 year old daughter is dragged home stinking drunk after sneaking off out to 'go parking' with the local bad boy, the mother writes her a soppy letter all about how much she loves her, and that even after she (the mother) is dead she'll always be watching over her. Yeah right! What I find even harder to believe is that no other reviewers have picked up on this, the one thing that ruined the whole book for me.

Ehh...Where to start?
Don't waste your time on this, I gave up on it two-hundred and something pages in. Some of the main points:
>basically juvenile,
>predictible plot,
>Poorly Written,
>Obvious plot explanations in character dialogue...etc

This could be forgiven if you cared about the characters, or even what happens, sadly however, this is not the case.