Thursday, November 6, 2014

No Safe Houses by Linwood Barclay


The blurb:
Seven years ago, Terry Archer and his family, who first appeared in No Time for Goodbye, experienced a horrific ordeal that almost cost them their lives.  Today, the echoes of that fateful night are still audible.  Terry's wife, Cynthia, is living separate from her husband and daughter after her own personal demons threatened to ruin her relationship with them permanently.  Their daughter, Grace, is rebelling, against her parents' seemingly endless overprotection.  Terry is just trying to keep his family together. And the entire town is reeling from the senseless murder of two elderly locals.

But when Grace foolishly follows her delinquent boyfriend into a strange house, the Archers must do more than stay together.  They must stay alive.  Because now they have all been unwillingly drawn into the shadowy depths of their seemingly idyllic hometown.

For there, they will be reconnected with the man who saved their lives seven years ago, but who still remains a ruthless, unrepentant criminal.  They will encounter killers for hire working all sides. And they will learn that there are some things people value much more than money, and will do anything to get.

Caught in a labyrinth between family loyalty and ultimate betrayal, Terry must find a way to extricate his family from a lethal situation he still doesn't fully comprehend.  All he knows is that to live, he may have to do the unthinkable.

Review:
I read No Safe House without having read No Time for Goodbye or any of Linwood Barclay's earlier novels.  I enjoyed it thoroughly and feel that the past relationships were well explained in the later book. 

Terry Archer's wife Cynthia had lived through a massacre. She'd long felt guilty for not having been able to save her family and she's nervous that her daughter might make the same wrong choices that she'd made. Unfortunately, Cynthia isn't able to communicate her anxiety and she ends up hurting her daughter and moves out of the house.  The daughter, Grace, is acting out and follows her boyfriend into a dangerous situation.  

Terry, Cynthia and Grace reach out to Cynthia's old friend Vince for help. Vince had been Cynthia's "delinquent boyfriend" when she was young but he's since progressed to become a well known and highly feared man.   Vince has problems of his own both in the family and health department.   Vince, Terry, Cynthia and even Grace work together to get out of the growing danger.

Fast paced, complicated, and deeply engaging, I thoroughly enjoyed No Safe House.
  • ISBN-10: 0451414209 - Hardcover $25.95
  • Publisher: NAL Hardcover; 1ST edition (August 5, 2014), 464 pages.
  • Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

About the Author:
Linwood Barclay is the New York Times #1 international bestselling author of eleven critically acclaimed  novels, including A Tap on the Window, Trust Your Eyes, which has been optioned for film, Never Look Away which has been option for television and No Time for Goodbye.