Ever wondered what it would be like to have an argument with your parents, tell them you wished they were dead, go to bed and wake up the next morning to discover that you are all alone in your house with everyone else all missing?
This is the plot for No Time for Goodbye in which 15 year old Cynthia Bigge wakes up one morning to see her parents Clayton and Patricia and her younger brother, Todd and the family cars all gone. Missing without a trace. No note left behind. No signs of anything. Only an unsolvable case closed by the police. A cold case file.
Fast forward to 25 years later and the story picks up again, this time narrated by Terry Archer as he watches a TV crew taping his wife Cynthia returning to her old home and describing that fateful night. It is a reality show and Cynthia has agreed to take part in it with hopes that someone out there watching the show might know something about the case and come forward with information that may give the police a break in their dead-end investigation.
The show airs and weeks go by … a few crank calls and one bogus psychic – but still no new leads. The Archers just about give up hoping when a black Fedora belonging to Clayton Bigge shows up one day on the kitchen table in the Archers’ home. And then the phone call and later a note, typewritten using Terry’s own typewriter that is kept in his study at home.
Someone out there knows everything and is slowly stripping away the layers of mystery, leading the Archers closer to solving the disappearance of Cynthia’s family but not before creating tension between husband and wife, and the deaths of Cynthia’s aunt, Tess and Denton Abagnall, the private investigator the Archers hire to try and piece together the puzzle.
I wont spoil this book for those of you who have not read it and plan on getting it. Suffice to say, it all starts with Clayton Bigge and ends with Clayton Sloan.
What do I think of this book? Okay – let’s start with the good things first. It’s easy to read, Barclay’s style of writing is direct, to the point, raw at times and unpretentious. He conveys the feeling of desperation and moments of insanity that hounds Cynthia well, and overall, achieves in producing a plot that is well paced, as it walks and then runs towards its climatic ending. In short, you’ll want to keep turning the pages over to know what happens next.
As for the not so good points, I must point out that at times, the plot is almost incredible and beyond belief especially the secret shared between Rolly Carruthers and Clayton Bigge, how each man’s need to keep one secret led to so many other things.
I hope this is enough to make you want to read it because I do think this is a readable book though not worth shouting about. Out of 10, (10 being excellent), I would give this one a 6 or 7. Readable, enjoyable – makes the time pass. And oh, the ending almost brought tears to my eyes – but hey, that’s just the sentimental side of me talking.
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 22, 2009 at 8:26 am
No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay « Bibliojunkie
[…] For a quick prognosis of the book, I refered you to a fellow blogger book review on this book see: Reading Monk book review on No time for Goodbye […]
March 22, 2009 at 7:41 pm
jovenus
You might miss my reply, so I am pasting it over here in your blog again: as a reply to “No time for goodbye”- (I hope WordPress do something about this, it’s so inconvenient):
I am not crazy about Barclay’s writings either. Yes, I have seen his face! I like to see the faces of his family though. He is married to a wife named Neetha. So am wondering if Neetha is like Jhumpa! Well, maybe women is better at multitasking. Kudos for your wife who needs to take care of your 16 month old and read 2 books in a day! Wow, I can’t beat that. You are funny, I almost can imagine you screaming your head off to stop your wife from discussing the book!
If you like crime fiction, I suggest you try Swedish crime fiction writer, Stieg Larsson. His Millenium trilogy are published posthumously. He died after submitting his manuscript, and didn’t had the chance to see how big a success his books came to be. Not sure if you could get pbk in Malaysia, it all comes in Hardback, that would mean it is dearer. 😦
November 2, 2009 at 7:57 am
D Bauer
I recently purchased No Time for Goodbye from a store under the True Crime section, which I am a fan of. When I inquired this book being listed as a Fiction under that particular section, the owner said it was infact true crime, she researched it. Reason printed under fiction was so the criminalist didn’t profit from it. It read like a fiction, was far fetched enough to be fiction, although it was a good enough read. ANd then to learn at the end the criminal’s family died anyway, who would have profitted from the writing of the story. Can anyone confirm yea/no to the truth of this. I say fiction, it is a novel.
November 2, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Jovenus13
I say it is fiction. It might be inspired by a true event, but as long as the writer added his own twists and shaped his own characters in any way different from the real thing, it’s fiction.
Same goes for books like Shantaram by Gregory Roberts (it says it’s autobiographical based on his life in Bombay, but it is tagged as literary fiction), or Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (which inspired by the horrific serial killing during Stalin era, but is also tagged as Fiction). True crime would be books like “The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale” which reads like a research paper and historical crime documentation.
May 8, 2011 at 8:47 pm
scarlett
Not being a frequent reader myself I picked this book up from the book shelf in a villa I recently stayed at whilst on holiday. From looking at the owners collection of books he clearly had a dark side as the majority of books on the shelf were related to crime, murder, jail and death.
I found Barclay’s writing easy to read and straight to tje point as some one else mentioned and read it in just 3 days which for me is quite an achievement.
I found the book difficult to put down, desperate to discover more about the ever twisting story line.
I think Barclay has a vivid imagination and I will defiantly be looking to read more of his books. I defiantly recommend this book to anyone looking for some light yet thrilling reading. I give it the thumbs up 🙂