No Time for Goodbye

De: Linwood Barclay

Narrado por: Christopher Lane

The house was deathly quiet. That was the first sign that something was terribly wrong. Fourteen-year-old Cynthia Bigge woke that morning to find herself alone. Her family - mother, father, and brother - had vanished without a word, without a note, without a trace. Twenty-five years later, Cynthia is still looking for answers. Now she is about to learn the devastating truth.

Cynthia and Terry Archer still live in Milford, Connecticut, not far from the old Bigge house on Hickory Street. With a solid marriage and a young daughter, the Archers seem on track for a successful future. But the questions raised by Cynthia's past still haunt her, and her obsession with finding the answers threatens to destroy everything they've worked for. For Cynthia, there can be no closure until she finds out why her family disappeared - and how they could have left her behind.

Terry thinks the segment on the popular TV crime-stopper program Deadline is a mistake. But his wife hopes that someone watching will have a lead to her missing family. Sure enough, it's Cynthia who spots the strange car cruising the neighborhood, hears the untraceable phone calls, and discovers the ominous "gifts." And as Cynthia's nerves begin to unravel, no one's innocence is guaranteed, not even her own.

By the time the first body is found, it's clear that her past is more of a mystery than she ever imagined - or may ever survive. Someone has returned to this Connecticut town to finish what was started 25 years ago. And by the time Terry and Cynthia discover the killer's shocking identity, it will be too late even for goodbye.

©2007 Linwood Barclay (P)2007 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Skilled characterization and convincing dialogue." (Publishers Weekly)

"No Time for Goodbye just flies off the page. It's a one-sit thriller. You sit down with this book and you won't get up until you've turned the last page." (Michael Connelly)

"A mystery masterpiece is read by a master narrator.... [Narrator Christopher] Lane exploits Barclay’s breathtaking momentum, building to an edge-of-the-seat climax and superbly portraying every character - killers, detectives, friends, a memorable mobster, and his comical gang. Not to be missed!" (AudioFile)

Excellant

What did you love best about No Time for Goodbye?

I am usually pretty good at figuring out mysteries, but this book kept me in suspense until the end. Barclay does a great job of dropping little clues throughout the story to ratchet up the suspense.

Excellent in Every Way!

This is one awesome story! It will keep you engaged and guessing until the very last. That's the kind of mystery that makes your time and credits worth it. Loved Christopher Lane's narration and looking forward to reading Barclay's next installment in this series, "No Safe House."

An interesting, rational and realistic mystery

I have found a new favorite author.

I frequently read mystery or suspense fiction, and I've developed a list of pet peeves: 1. lack of logic (a police detective who NEVER follows orders yet never gets fired or chastised); 2. extremely unrealistic plot points (a murdered jumps out of a 24th-story window, disappears, but re-appears 2 chapters later unharmed with no explanation of how he escaped death); 3. sex for sex's sake (two detectives who can feel the "sizzle" between them, although this has nothing to do with the story and does not advance the plot); under-developed characters.

Linwood Barclay has created a family that I can believe in. They have thoroughly drawn neuroses, quirks, strengths and weaknesses. Barclay has dropped JUST the right number of hints at the beginning of the story to allow me to wonder and anticipate. He establishes suspicions without giving the ending away. When his characters have to face something curious or weird or upsetting, they do so as regular human beings rather than as super heroes or idiots.

Add to this a narrator who got every voice just right, and you have a tremendous novel.

Barclay does not write the poetry of Louise Penny, and he doesn't scare me as Preston and Child do, but his story was an interesting, rational and realistic mystery. Loved it!

Narrator needs some fine tuning

I liked the story enough to keep me listening. The narrator was pretty good As the story teller but there were a few exceptions. The author clearly said a character had a Boston accent and it came out a southern drawl. Then when a new character was introduced I thought it was a Jimmy Stewart impersonation and hard to take seriously. There were a few others that needed tuning, the psychic was such a bad Jamaican stereotype I had to laugh. It wasn’t bad enough that I stopped listening altogether, which has happened to me more than once.

Liked it but there were some huge flaws

This was pretty interesting. I suspect that if you read many mysteries or thrillers it might not surprise you so much at the end.

The character development was fine. I just didn't like the character of the narrator (not the actual audio book narrator's voice). The husband. He was a bit of a jerk.

One of the biggest flaws were subplots that added nothing to the story. Oh well.

Overall not a bad read (listen?) It bogged down in a few places, but for the most part kept my attention.