No Time for Goodbye [Audiobook, CD, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Linwood Barclay (Author), Christopher Lane (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 25, 2007

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 to find 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 twenty-five years ago. And by the time Terry and Cynthia discover the killer’s shocking identity, it will be too late even for goodbye.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Barclay (Bad Guys) tugs hard on the heartstrings with the tragic tale of Cynthia Bigge, whose parents and brother vanished without a trace the day after she had a tempestuous teenage argument with her father. Twenty-five years later, raising a daughter with her husband, Terrence Archer, in Milford, Conn., but still haunted by her family's disappearance, Cynthia goes on TV to talk about what happened and plead for clues. A mysterious phone call leads her to believe her father, at least, may still be alive, but as her excitement grows, so do Terrence's worries. It soon appears that someone is playing a unexpectedly vicious game with Cynthia's emotions, and that her family held secrets she never suspected. Though some plot twists require significant suspension of disbelief, skilled characterization and convincing dialogue more than compensate. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

After turning out four mystery novels featuring science-fiction author Zack Walker (the most recent is Stone Rain, 2007), Toronto Star columnist Barclay pens a stand-alone thriller that carries his signature blend of humor and suspense. Fourteen-year-old Cynthia Bigge wakes up one morning to find her entire family gone. Twenty-five years later, their unexplained disappearance still haunts her. She agrees to appear on the reenactment show Deadline, hoping the TV exposure might provide her with some answers, although her husband, English teacher Terry Archer, is considerably more skeptical. Indeed, not long after the show airs, the two are shaken down by a psychic, receive a series of bizarre phone calls, and become the victims of a break-in, although nothing is taken; instead, something is left—a hat that Cynthia is convinced belonged to her father. As Cynthia's paranoia escalates, Terry's patience wears thin, and the two decide to hire a private detective. That's when the mayhem starts. Despite a few implausible plot turns, this fast-paced read is bound to please, offering an especially intriguing premise and plenty of irreverent humor. Wilkinson, Joanne --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged Lib Ed; Library edition (September 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423341090
• ISBN-13: 978-1423341093
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 6.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,070,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Linwood Barclay is a former columnist for The Toronto Star and the author of several critically acclaimed novels, including Too Close to Home and No Time for Goodbye, a #1 Sunday Times (UK) bestseller. He lives near Toronto with his wife.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite thrillers of the year, September 29, 2007

By 

Overworked writer (Maine USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Time for Goodbye (Hardcover)

I'm in publishing, so I get the chance to read quite a few thrillers before they're released, and NO TIME FOR GOODBYE made my top-10 list of the year. The premise is stunning: a teenage girl wakes up to find her family gone. Her father, mother, and brother have simply vanished, leaving her to deal with the painful aftermath of abandonment. Or are they dead? She never finds out... until years later, when she's happily married, with a child of her own. Suddenly new clues arise that make her wonder if her parents and brother may still be alive. But then, why did they leave her?

It's her husband who narrates the tale, and as the story twists and turns, even he wonders about the sanity of his own wife. The ending is a stunning surprise. Deeply satisfying, emotionally wrenching, this is one terrific book.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just a thriller, November 9, 2007

By 

Robert Deutsch - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: No Time for Goodbye (Hardcover)

No Time for Goodbye is marketed as a can't-put-it-down suspense thriller, and while the description is appropriate, the book is much more than that. Like Linwood Barclay's novels featuring Zack Walker, No Time for Goodbye is more character- than plot-driven. Yes, there is a clever, intricately-woven plot, but what distinguises this novel from the typical thriller is that the characters seem like real people, not just convenient plot devices. Barclay has the ability to draw us into the lives of his characters, so we come to genuinely care for them, and don't want anything bad to happen to them. And, most unusual for a novel in the suspense genre, there are some truly touching passages, at least two of which brought tears to my eyes. This is definitely not your run-of-the-mill suspense thriller.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply marvelous, October 30, 2007

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Time for Goodbye (Hardcover)

Those familiar with Linwood Barclay's previous novels, take note: NO TIME FOR GOODBYE is quite a different work for him. There is not a trace of good old Zack Walker here, though protagonist Terry Archer, a high school English teacher, could be decent buds with him should their paths ever cross. While the Walker books --- BAD MOVE, BAD GUYS, LONE WOLF and STONE RAIN --- were suburban caper novels, occasionally bordering on the comedic, NO TIME FOR GOODBYE is the stuff of nightmarish mystery.

Terry Archer is married to Cynthia Bigge, a woman with a past. Cynthia was a semi-rebellious 14-year-old when her family vanished overnight from their suburban Connecticut home. She had it better than most would have in such circumstances, being taken in and raised by a loving aunt and later meeting and marrying Terry, a supporting husband who truly loves her even as he is occasionally plagued by her understandable overprotectiveness of their daughter and his fleeting self-doubt over Cynthia's story.

Things come to a head, however, when a television news magazine does a feature on the mysterious, long-ago disappearance of Cynthia's family. Cynthia suddenly feels as if she is being followed; she sees a man at a shopping mall who, she is certain, is a grownup version of her missing brother; and her father's trademark fedora is found resting on their kitchen table. Terry is not completely sure that his wife isn't perhaps making some of it up, as a secondary symptom of some serious emotional problems. His love for her is such, however, that he gives her the benefit of the doubt.

Things are ratcheted up a notch or three when Terry and Cynthia hire a private investigator, whose questions spark a pair of horrendous occurrences that in turn bring the events that began over a quarter century before to a shocking conclusion.

While Barclay's work has always been enjoyable and worth reading, NO TIME FOR GOODBYE is in a class all by itself. Barclay is simply marvelous as he appears to repeatedly paint himself into a corner, only to deftly exit through the door that happened to be there all along, in plain view. As I approached the conclusion, I couldn't help but shout "OF COURSE!" as all was revealed. The author plays fair, providing a clue or two early on as to the impetus behind the disappearance of three-quarters of the Bigge family. But a good deal of the enjoyment of the book is not so much the surprise of the solution but the manner in which Barclay carries it off.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub