Linwood Barclay: No Time for Goodbye

Admittedly, the first half of this book didn't have me hooked, but for some reason I needed to find out what would happen at the end, the more I read the more I was drawn in, until I couldn't put it down without wondering about the outcome.

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...

For the first part of the book, the story is pretty mundane, talking about Cynthia not coping at all with the loss of her family and her general home life.  I suppose this is to let us form a bond with the characters, but I think I related to them a lot more once the twists started coming.  Once Cynthia and her husband start finding clues about where her family might have gone, my interest rose and rose.  As soon as things started happening, the way Barclay wrote was a lot more interesting.  It was filled with unexpected twists and turns, and not a page went by where something exciting happened.  I usually read crime/thriller stories from the point of view of a police officer/detective/private investigator/lawyer, but it was enjoyable to read something from a victim's point of view for a change.

I don't want to ruin the plot, but this definitely isn't a predictable story.  Even when you think you've got it all figured out, another unexpected twist hits you in the face.  The roller coaster plot kept me glued to the pages, and I'm already searching for another Linwood Barclay book to read - any recommendations?  If you like a thriller filled with twists and turns you need to read this.