Review: Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay

The Blurb (from Lovereading.co.uk)
It starts with a trip to a local amusement park. David Harwood is hoping a carefree day at Five Mountains will help dispel his wife Jan's recent depression, black moods that have led to frightening thoughts of suicide. Instead, a day of fun with their four-year-old son Ethan turns into a nightmare. When Jan disappears from the park, David's worst fears seem to have come true. But when he goes to the police to report her missing, terrified that she's planning to take her own life, the facts start to indicate something very different. The park's records show that only two tickets were purchased, David and Ethan's, and CCTV shows no evidence that Jan ever entered the park at all. Suddenly David's story starts to look suspicious - suspicious enough for the police to wonder if she's already dead, murdered by her husband. To prove his innocence and keep his son from being taken away from him, David is going to have to dig deep into the past and come face to face with a terrible childhood tragedy - but by doing that he could risk destroying everything precious to him.

The Review
Looking for a gripping thriller of a read? Linwood Barclay knows how to do it. Never Look Away is his fourth novel and I would almost say his best yet. In his previous books the plot has tended to run away with him a little, and there's always a point where you think "oh, come on, this would NEVER happen!". But that point doesn't really come in Never Look Away ... although there is one twist in the plot which does come close to being unbelievable, but I'll give Mr Barclay the benefit of the doubt. It did take me a little while to get into this one, but once I knew I was hooked I checked the page number and I was on page 101, so it didn't take all that long.

Never Look Away tells the story of a man looking for his wife. A wife who, he discovers, is not who she says she is and who he doesn't really know at all. The police, of course, think he has done her in and this is really quite a scary concept, being taken for guilty until proven innocent! I can only imagine the terror of being wrongly accused of murdering someone you love, someone you are desperate to find.

This is by no means a literary masterpiece, but it is most certainly a page turner with an absorbing plot and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good thriller!

My Rating: 4/5