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Fear the Worst

by Linwood Barclay, Buck Schirner (Narrator)

3.75 · rating details · 1,702 ratings · 376 reviews

Tim is an average guy. He sells cars. He has an ex-wife who's moved in with a man whose moody son spends more time online than he should. Tim's girlfriend is turning out to be a bit of a flake. It's not a life without hassles, but nothing will prepare him for the nightmare that's about to begin.His daughter, Sydney, has vanished into thin air. At the hotel where she suppos...more

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Published August 11th 2009 by Brilliance Corporation (first published January 1st 2009)

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Jul 31, 2009

Jeanette rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: all-fiction, suspense-thriller

I won a copy of this book from good reads giveaways. This was the first book I'd read by Linwood Barclay, and I enjoyed the story. Great summer reading.

Tim Blake is a divorced Connecticut car salesman. His teenage daughter Sydney is staying with him for the summer. One night she doesn't come home from work. Tim goes looking for her at the inn where she's been working, and is told she never worked there. He tries to go on with his normal life while looking for Sydney, and even...more

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Jan 18, 2012

Keith rated it

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Herein lies a tale of what must be every parent’s worst nightmare. What happens to your life if you drop your teenaged daughter off at her summer job one bright weekday morning and she doesn’t return home that evening? Worry turns to fear but as you begin to search you find that not only has no one seen her but her supposed employer tells you that she doesn’t work there---never has---and they don’t even know her. Now the fear turns to panic. This is what Tim Blake, a divorced father, experie...more

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May 11, 2010

Kerstin rated it

· review of another edition

Kurzbeschreibung:
Eigentlich wollte Tim einen schönen Sommer mit seiner Teenagertochter verbringen. Seit der Trennung von seiner Frau lebt Sydney bei ihrer Mutter am anderen Ende der Stadt.
Doch für einen Sommerjob in einem Hotel zieht sie vorübergehend zu Tim. Und verschwindet nach wenigen Wochen spurlos.
Voller Sorge macht Tim sich auf die Suche nach seiner Tochter, richtet eine Website ein, geht allen Hinweisen nach.
Als sein eigenes Haus verwüstet wird, ahnt er, dass er selbs...more

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Sep 27, 2010

Jeff rated it

· review of another edition

Well, it was a decent read. He keeps the suspense moving at a decent clip. Nothing earth shattering, and a few ridiculous coincidences. But overall a solid enough plane thriller as I warm up for Infinite Jest. :)

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Feb 05, 2012

Jason rated it

· review of another edition

Very rarely to I hand out five starts but I felt this book was among one of the best books I have every read. I picked up this book when I was in Pairs at the airport on my way home. The book was few among the English section. I read the entire flight home and never stopped.
This book is about Tim Blake, a divorced man who that is a salesman at a car dealership, whom has a teenage daughter named Sydney, Syd. Syd is temporarily staying with her father while she works at a run-down hotel ...more

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Dec 31, 2011

Arlene added it · review of another edition

Tim Blake’s teenaged daughter Sydney has vanished. Her supposed co-workers claim never to have heard of her. The police begin to turn their investigation toward Blake. As the days stretch into weeks, the lack of answers begins to drive Blake to desperate acts of recklessness. In Fear the Worst, author Linwood Barclay milks this scenario for every ounce of suspense he can. Barclay has earned favourable comparisons with American novelist Harlan Coben, a well-regarded purveyor of domestic terrors. ...more

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Jun 06, 2011

Ms.pegasus rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: mystery and suspense lovers

Shelves: suspense

Imagine that one morning your teen-age daughter goes to her summer job … and disappears. Linwood Barclay captures that single moment in all of its frantic terror, and suspends it in time. Into this void, he occupies us with circumspect introductions to his characters. We learn that the girl who has disappeared is named Sydney. We see her exclusively through the eyes of her father, Tim, a failed dealer and now a car salesman treading water in his career. Tim's ex-wife Susanne's boyfriend, ...moreImagine that one morning your teen-age daughter goes to her summer job … and disappears. Linwood Barclay captures that single moment in all of its frantic terror, and suspends it in time. Into this void, he occupies us with circumspect introductions to his characters. We learn that the girl who has disappeared is named Sydney. We see her exclusively through the eyes of her father, Tim, a failed dealer and now a car salesman treading water in his career. Tim's ex-wife Susanne's boyfriend, Bob Janigan, owns Bob's Motors, a used car dealership with wide recognition from its garish TV ads. Bob has a teen-age son from a previous marriage, Evan. Susanne has recently moved in with Bob and his son, and Syd is only living with her father during the summer while she works her summer job. All of this is disclosed in a frustratingly leisurely pace. FEAR THE WORST is a carefully paced thriller. While Tim agonizes over his daughter's mysterious disappearance, the reader agonizes over the languid and virtually clueless narrative. Instead of directions, we are offered more unanswered questions.

Linwood's characters are convincingly human. From the very beginning, the reader is drawn to Tim. The last time he sees his daughter, he fixes a breakfast of eggs for her, and whimsically constructs a humpty-dumpty face out of the eggshell. The gesture brings a near smile to Syd's face, just before they have a typical generational flare-up. All of the action takes place from Tim's point of view. A failure as an entrepreneur, he is nevertheless an acute observer of human behavior. His emotional anguish is balanced by an inner voice of irony. When Bob defensively remarks: “This thing with Sydney, it's taking its toll” Tim's mocking recap is: “He made it sound like we were having a stretch of bad weather. 'Hope this thing with Sydney passes soon so we can put the top down on the car.'” All of the characters seem to suffer a limiting tunnel vision that enables us to tolerate their obtuse and unhelpful behaviors.

The writing is nearly perfect. Each character claims ownership to a unique voice. Tim describes Evan, for example, exiting a car: “[he] slithered out of the back seat like a piece of boneless chicken.” It seems only natural that Evan would later mumble: “But like, a couple of days before she [Syd] disappeared, she got one of those get-pregnant-at-home kits...” The décor of a theme restaurant is described as containing “bits and bobs of nautical gear,” which is exactly the kind of casual precision a character like Tim would use.

Linwood repeatedly lulls the reader into a kind of stasis only to reveal a new turn of events with the abruptness of an electric shock. These shocks increase in frequency as the story progresses. As more and more pieces fall into place, the story takes on the momentum of an action thriller. Pace, writing, characters -- this book has them all.(less)

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Feb 24, 2011

Stephen Clynes rated it

· review of another edition

Fear the Worst is written in the first person and it is a crime thriller in the top league. Tim's situation is very easy to relate to and this story has a good pace with a very good attention to detail. It is an engaging story and you develop a great empathy for Tim Blake in his quest to find his missing daughter. Tim has very little information to go on, where is Sydney and why has she lied to him? Why did she not leave a note or phone home?

There are plenty of twists and doubts for t...more

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Feb 05, 2011

Paul Pessolano rated it

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I'm sure many of you have read Linwood Barclay's, "No Time for Goodbye" and "Too Close to Home".

You will find that in "Fear the Worst" Barclay has again put the reader on edge. A young girl, Syd Blake, goes to work at a hotel one morning and disappears. Not only does she disappear but when her father inquires at the "Just Inn Time" inn where she supposedly works, no one has ever heard of her.

Syd's father, Tim, starts searching for...more

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Jan 28, 2011

Lisa rated it

· review of another edition

I'd just finished another of this author's books and was looking for something light and easy. This is hardly a 'thriller' as his other book is, but it's still a pageturner. My only problem is that the author doesn't follow Chekov's rule about the gun in the first act going off in the third act. (Spoiler below)

Why was the main character's house searched? What were the bad guys looking for? I thought FOR SURE that when the father had taken the stuffed animal on his road trip, ...more

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Jan 22, 2011

Sarah rated it

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Shelves: 2011-white-pine-book-club-award-nom

I read this as part of the White Pine Book Club in my school (it's currently in the running for the White Pine Book Award as a 2011 nominee). As part of Club privileges, members get to vote which of the 10 nominees is worthy of the Award--that is, after reading a minimum of 5 books. Members only get to vote once, so choices definitely need to be well-thought out. This was my 7th book and while it wasn't too bad, it didn't set off any rockets in my head either. As I was scanning the shelves for a...moreI read this as part of the White Pine Book Club in my school (it's currently in the running for the White Pine Book Award as a 2011 nominee). As part of Club privileges, members get to vote which of the 10 nominees is worthy of the Award--that is, after reading a minimum of 5 books. Members only get to vote once, so choices definitely need to be well-thought out. This was my 7th book and while it wasn't too bad, it didn't set off any rockets in my head either. As I was scanning the shelves for a book I hasn't read yet, I noticed this small, blue book sitting in the corner. The premise was intriguing: what parent wouldn't freak out after their kid goes missing, going to their workplace to look for them, and being told he or she had never worked there at all? The reviews plastered on the back cover didn't hurt either--I was definitely in the mood for something "throat-grabbing" and "very hard to put down". Sadly, that wasn't the impression I was left with.

The beginning was a tad slow. While I understood that Barclay was trying to score points in characterization, I felt that the paragraphs chronicling a typical day in Tim Blake's life were forced and tedious. Some of the details grated on me--how it seemed as if the protagonist was surrounded by beautiful women who were constantly throwing themselves at him, how some of the character's actions were a bit hard to believe--though for the most part, Tim Blake was a serviceable main character. The dialogue, however, was nicely done and realistic so kudos to the author for that.

It wasn't until 250 pages in that I really felt like the story was going somewhere. The more details came to light, the more action took place, the more I was put on the edge of my seat and for the rest of the novel, I felt that I couldn't flip the pages fast enough. Though I already anticipated the ending--to be fair, I'd recently done some pretty thorough research on a similar subject for a speech--some discoveries did manage to surprise me, if not actually cause me to shake my head in disbelief. There was a healthy amount of humour laced throughout the book, which helped in lightening the mood.

To be completely honest though: I didn't feel enough of a connection with Sydney to actually feel motivated to stay with Tim as he went on his relentless search for her. Her characterization, while done well in the few pages we get to see her in the present time and in a few scattered flashbacks, felt a bit too thin to me. Half of the time I was (guiltily) asking myself whether I would be as fevered as Tim if I had been in his situation. The other characters were okay--none really stood out for me except maybe Bob and Andy, oddly enough.

Would I recommend it? Perhaps; while it wouldn't be my first choice, I wouldn't say it was trash. Would I use my one White Pine Book Award vote for it though? I think it would be safe to say no.
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Jun 09, 2010

Denise rated it

· review of another edition

3.0 out of 5 stars Misses the mark..., June 14, 2009

This review is from: Fear the Worst: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was so excited to get this book since I have read all of Barclay's novels. The genre of thriller/suspense is my favorite, and I read everyone. Barclay has a style similar to Coben, Finder, Gerritsen and Slaughter. Even so, all of them have trouble sometimes with their endings and some of the confrontation scenes have more than adequate drama and almost unbeliev...more 3.0 out of 5 stars Misses the mark..., June 14, 2009

This review is from: Fear the Worst: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was so excited to get this book since I have read all of Barclay's novels. The genre of thriller/suspense is my favorite, and I read everyone. Barclay has a style similar to Coben, Finder, Gerritsen and Slaughter. Even so, all of them have trouble sometimes with their endings and some of the confrontation scenes have more than adequate drama and almost unbelievable escapes from the clutches of the evildoers.

This started out well -- had a great premise -- and kept me glued to the pages, racing through the action -- but missed the mark in the final 75 pages when I believe it all started defying logic, the body count mounted, and the ending really made me angry. I understand an author taking liberties with his characters -- but I don't like senseless deaths when less dramatic resolutions would have made the story a bit more believable. I don't like pat conclusions and I don't like predictability -- it seems that both became increasingly likely in the last few chapters.

Tim Blake's daughter, Sydney, simply doesn't come home after work one evening. He drives to her place of employment, Just Inn Time, and when he questions the employees at the hotel as to her whereabouts, none of them admit to knowing her and they deny that she works there! From that point on, we're led on a whirlwind of frantic activity as Tim tries to find his missing daughter. We meet his ex-wife Susanne and her boyfriend Bob, and a host of other characters -- some germane to the investigation and some that have unnecessary side plots that contribute nothing to the flow and advancement of the central story. Frankly, there was just too much going on, and I think it detracts from the main story line without really adding to the enjoyment of the novel.

What I liked: originally I liked the character of Tim Blake, but then as things evolved, I really felt that he was going off half-cocked on his own independent investigation and that I had to suspend a lot of disbelief. I liked the idea of a parent being surprised by something such as a child not working where she said she was.

What I didn't like: the stereotypical supporting cast including the bumbling police who can't help Tim find his daughter and who accuse him at every turn impeding his search, the exwife and her boyfriend who are a cliche, the assorted and sundry workers at Just Inn Time, the bad guys, and the innocent victims who were basically just collateral.

I have reservations about recommending it highly. As I said, it started out as a definite 4 star + read, but it just couldn't carry it to the end. This one is nowhere nearly as good as No Time for Goodbye but is equivalent to Too Close to Home. (less)

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Nov 24, 2009

Banafsheh Serov rated it

· review of another edition

How would you feel showing up to where you thought your daughter had been working all summer only to be told she never worked there. Worst still how would you feel if your daughter was now missing? This is the nightmare Tim Blake, a Toyota car salesman, faces when his 17-year-old daughter Sydney who was staying with him for the summer, goes to work one day and fails to come home. So begins a mystery with more high speed twists and turns than the wildest rollercoaster. At every turn, there are...more

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Sep 28, 2009

Louise rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: thriller-suspense

Wow!!! I have just discovered my newest 'favourite' Canadian author!! Linwood Barclay makes no bones about writing thrilling, fast-paced, hold onto your seat, and don't take your eyes off the page story telling. His talent for spinning out a bone-chilling mystery and thriller with neatly and precisely carved characters is mind blowing. Lots of thrills and unexpected's in this one! I'm on the hunt for ALL this author's work now!! lol

From dust jacket:

"Your daughter doe...moreWow!!! I have just discovered my newest 'favourite' Canadian author!! Linwood Barclay makes no bones about writing thrilling, fast-paced, hold onto your seat, and don't take your eyes off the page story telling. His talent for spinning out a bone-chilling mystery and thriller with neatly and precisely carved characters is mind blowing. Lots of thrills and unexpected's in this one! I'm on the hunt for ALL this author's work now!! lol

From dust jacket:

"Your daughter doesn't come home one night from her summer job. You go there looking for her. No one's seen her. But it's worse than that. No one's EVER SEEN HER. So where has she been going every day? And where is she now?

In Linwood Barclay's riveting new thriller, an ordinary man's desperate search for his daughter leads him into a dark world of corruption, exploitation, and murder. Tim Blake is about to learn that the people you think you know best are the ones harboring the biggest secrets.

Tim is an average guy. He sells cars. He has an ex-wife who's moved in with a man whose moody son spends more time online than he should. Tim's girlfriend is turning out to be a bit of flake. It's not a life without hassles, but nothing will prepare him for the nightmare that's about to begin.

His daughter, Sydney, has vanished into thin air. At the hotel were she supposedly worked, no one has ever heard of her. Even her closest friends seem to be at a loss. Now, as the days pass without word, Tim must face that fact that not only is Sydney missing, but he may not have known his daughter as well as he thought.

As he retraces Sydney's steps, Tim discovers that the surburban Connecticut town he always thought of as idyllic is anything but. What he doesn't know is that his every move is being watched. There are others who want to find Sydney as much as Tim does.

But they're not planning a welcome-home party.

The closer Tim comes to the truth, the closer he comes to every parent's worst nightmare - and the kind of evil only a parent's love has a chance in hell of stopping."

Highly, highly recommend this book!

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Aug 20, 2009

Bobbie Crawford-McCoy rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: All thriller fans and to anyone who wants to try something exciting and new!

Shelves: books-that-i-own, all-reviews, fiction-reviews

Fear the Worst
Written by: Linwood Barclay
Published by: Doubleday Canada
Date: August 11th, 2009
Pages: 416
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0385668026

Fear the Worst is one heck of a ride and it comes from the Canadian, #1 Internationally Bestselling Author of Too Close To Home; I've never read it and if Fear the worst is any indication, it is probably phenomenal! I cannot say enough positive things about this book; it's high-adrenaline, fast-paced and has a...more

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Aug 18, 2009

Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009-audio-books, 2009-mysteries

Fear the Worst, by Linwood Barclay, a-minus, narrated by Buck Schirner, Produced by Brillance Audio, downloaded from audible.com.

Tim Blake is a car salesman for a company with a Honda franchise. He is divorced from Suzanne, who has moved in with Bob, a successful used car salesman whom Tim hates. Tim and Suzanne’s daughter, Sydney, commutes back and forth between their houses. For the summer she is living with Tim. Tim drops her at work one day. He’s never seen the inside of the...more

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Aug 09, 2009

Michael rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Any mystery fans, Harlan Coban fans, family mystery fans.

Recommended to Michael by: Goodreads advanced reading club

Shelves: hardboiled, mystery, own-it, read-in-2009, reviewed, thriller, reader-s-club-review-request

This novel grabs your attention from the start.
Tim Blake has his 17 year old daughter, Sydney, staying with him during the summer. She never comes home from her job in a local motel. Tim goes to the hotel and asks the management about her. They don't know her and inform him that she never worked there.

He tries to keep his life going and barely succeeds until the police tell him that they've found his daughter's car in a local parking lot.
What would you do as a parent?
...more

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Jul 31, 2009

Pamela rated it

· review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I couldn’t put it down—read it in one night. His protagonist reminded me of most of Harlon Coben’s characters. Timothy Blake was a believable, oblivious single father treading a tightrope dealing with a teenager; his ex-wife and Bob were flawed people who had made their own mistakes. The book doesn’t treat police very well, but I’m afraid that was pretty realistic, too. Interesting details in the plot were the cell phone scam, the preying on teens for a credit card racket, and the traffi...moreI couldn’t put it down—read it in one night. His protagonist reminded me of most of Harlon Coben’s characters. Timothy Blake was a believable, oblivious single father treading a tightrope dealing with a teenager; his ex-wife and Bob were flawed people who had made their own mistakes. The book doesn’t treat police very well, but I’m afraid that was pretty realistic, too. Interesting details in the plot were the cell phone scam, the preying on teens for a credit card racket, and the trafficking in illegals---all hot topics. The semen donor twist (Tim’s daughter Patty) was a bit too coincidental; also, the final shootout when Veronica shoots Patty was a little too pat, too convenient. It solved a lot of future issues. Speaking of future issues, the denouement was weak (or missing), since nothing tied it back to the beginning of the book, and talk about loose ends—cars, a dead salesman, a dead teen, etc. I really liked the use of a Honda salesman and the info about the agency, since I, too, drive a Honda! Andy was a good twist, too; too bad about his fate. Overall, I really liked the book. It was a fast read with a believable main character who bumbles his way through but never gives up the search for his missing daughter. The scenario of the missing child is every parent’s worst nightmare, but the author dealt with this in a way that I could still bear to read the book. It was not maudlin, just gut wrenching, especially when he described the worry of a parent of a missing child as going to bed and getting up each morning with cinder blocks on his shoulders-- a memorable, apt analogy.

There was a small problem that I noted—and perhaps I missed something earlier.
When Jeff is describing the guy who paid him to rip off credit cards (page 260 of ARC), he says he doesn’t remember his name.
Yet on page 262, Tim says, “You probably weren’t the only kid GARY had doing this.”
On the same page, several paragraphs LATER, Jeff says, “Thing is, he told me his name once but then when he answered his phone, he said, like, ‘Gary here.’”
All of this seems to contradict, especially when TIM uses the name Gary before Jeff tells him the name.

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Jul 31, 2009

Laura rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone who needs a super-duper fast, brain-candy read (maybe good for a longer airplane trip?)

Recommended to Laura by: Goodreads

Shelves: first-reads

This is a First Reads (my first First Reads), and I'm not sure if the book is out yet to the general public but it should be soon.

It's a decent thriller, and an absolute page-turner because, if for nothing else, the main character, Tim, rarely stops moving. The prose, while not particularly great, is solidly okay--clean and simple--and this also keeps the eyes moving quickly (although, FYI Barclay: no one in the states refers to drunk people as being "pissed," nor do many ...more

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Jun 21, 2009

Cheryl rated it

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Tim Blake is divorced. He is looking forward to spending the summer with his seventeen year old daughter, Sydney. This year through she won’t be working at the car dealership that he works at. Sydney found herself a job working at the Just In Time hotel, which caters to traveling business men.

When Sydney doesn’t come home, Tim heads to the hotel only to learn his worst nightmare has just begun. Sydney has gone missing, without a trace. It is as if she never existed. The hotel staff ...more

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Jul 09, 2009

Jenny rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

Lynwood Barclay's latest thriller, Fear the Worst, tells the suspenseful story of a man searching relentlessly for his daughter who has mysteriously disappeared. The plot moves quickly and the cliffhanger at the end of each chapter kept me continuously engaged in the story.

Tim Blake's 17-year-old daughter, Sydney (Syd), is staying with him for the summer, as she does every year. During the visit last year, she worked at the car dealership her father works at, but this year she got a ...moreLynwood Barclay's latest thriller, Fear the Worst, tells the suspenseful story of a man searching relentlessly for his daughter who has mysteriously disappeared. The plot moves quickly and the cliffhanger at the end of each chapter kept me continuously engaged in the story.

Tim Blake's 17-year-old daughter, Sydney (Syd), is staying with him for the summer, as she does every year. During the visit last year, she worked at the car dealership her father works at, but this year she got a new job working at a local hotel. One day, Syd and her father have an argument before she leaves for work and she doesn't return home from work that day. When Tim goes to check Syd's work, he finds out she never worked there and no one knows who she is.

Though Tim eventually has to return to his mundane daily life, he continues to do what he can to find clues about Syd's disappearance. He slowly learns that Syd was involved with a lot more than he realized and may not have been who he thought she was.

This novel moved quickly with new events occurring in each chapter. For those who want a fast-paced and fun read, this is it. I could easily see this being turned into an entertaining suspense movie. However, keep in mind that this book was heavily focused on plot turns and twists and continued action. While very entertaining, it somewhat lacked some character development. We meet a range of characters in the book but rarely get to know any well. There were a few flashbacks of Syd as a child at different ages that contributed slightly to the story. There were also a few plot points that seemed a little too convenient. I have to say, though, that even when I noticed these things in the book, it didn't really take away from the entertaining aspect of the book. I plowed through the book because I wanted to know what happened to Sydney, and I was happy with the way the mystery wrapped up. I would have preferred one more chapter to wrap up some character things, but as previously mentioned, this book focused completely on the main mystery at hand. It was a fun read!
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Nov 21, 2009

Bob rated it

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Tim is a car salesman; he used to have his own dealership but lost it because he just wasn’t suited to be a manager. He lost his wife as well because she didn’t think he had enough drive to do better job/money wise for the family. Still friends he and the wife share care for the teenaged daughter. When his daughter Sydney fails to come home from her job he begins to search only to find out that no one at the low rent motel where she was supposed to be working had ever heard of her. He repor...more

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Sep 28, 2009

Nicola rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: arc, own

Reason for Reading: Last year I read and enjoyed Barclay's Too Close to Home so much I just had to read his newest book.

Comments: One day Tim Blake's 17yo daughter Syd goes off to work her summer job as per usual but she doesn't come home. Since they had a spat that morning he gives her some leeway thinking she's angry and not calling to say she's working late but once plenty of time has gone by he drops by the hotel she's been working at all summer to find out that they've never he...moreReason for Reading: Last year I read and enjoyed Barclay's Too Close to Home so much I just had to read his newest book.

Comments: One day Tim Blake's 17yo daughter Syd goes off to work her summer job as per usual but she doesn't come home. Since they had a spat that morning he gives her some leeway thinking she's angry and not calling to say she's working late but once plenty of time has gone by he drops by the hotel she's been working at all summer to find out that they've never heard of her, she hasn't worked there at all. And thus begins the worst journey of Tim's life as he searches for his missing duahter finding out about a dark and dangerous world he'd never known existed and also finding out that the police are not always on your side.

Wonderful book. First, a very different type of story than Too Close to Home, which is closer to my usual murder mystery genre. This one would be classified more as a suspense and I could very much see it as a being made into a movie. The plot isn't exactly fast-paced as it is pretty much one theme all along, the search for Sydney, or rather the chase. However, there is so much action happening all the time that the book does move along at a fast past. The twists and turns and reveals that are thrown regularly at the reader at any point in the story keeps the suspense and tension high, as one doesn't know what is going to happen next or who is not really whom they seem to be. From the two books I've read, I'm seeing this as Barclay's forte as an author. I look forward to reading more of his books.

I enjoy Barclay's writing. He keeps a tight, taut thriller with plenty of possible chances for the reader to figure it out but with all the twists from start to finish you'll be lucky to completely solve the intricate plot on your own. I had my eye on a suspect from the beginning but what they were guilty of I hadn't a clue, I was right in the end, but not very proud of simply picking out a guilty person. The only thing I'm not pleased with is the ending. The mystery plot itself is wrapped up nicely but it ends with the characters and it's a "what the?" ending. It's very abrupt and seeing as where the characters' plot was going, disappointing. Not a nice note, for me at least, to end a book on. If you've read the book you'll know what I mean. If you haven't don't let that stop you reading the book. Books don't always have "happily ever after" endings and this one is worth the ride. Looking forward to dipping into Barclay's backlist and hopefully a new book in the new year(less)

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Aug 25, 2009

Becky rated it

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As Fear the Worst opens divorced dad Tim Blake is having a minor domestic spat with his teen-age daughter. Just pages later she is missing, and a whole sequence of thriller cliches is ratcheted into place.

Sydney, the daughter, is unknown by her supposed co-workers at the seedy hotel she's told her dad she'd been working in all summer. Tim, unable to handle the pressure of events, alienates his boss, his co-workers, his ex-wife, his girlfriend. Bigger and nastier goings-on are un...more

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Oct 13, 2009

Kirsten rated it

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Shelves: fiction, own, reviewer-book

The premise of this book is an interesting one: what would you do if, as a loving parent, your teenage daughter disappeared one day? And, added to that, what if you went to her workplace and they told you she'd never worked there, and they had no idea who she was?

The beginning of the novel, when a father is in just this situation, is really quite good. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes overburdened with a growing cast of characters and dozens of convoluted occurences, and the end r...more

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Aug 10, 2009

Gail (myJunegirls) rated it

· review of another edition

rating is more a 3 1/2 star than a 3.
This was a book I won on here (Goodreads). It has not been released yet. It was an entertaining story. Enough that it kept me wanting to read to see what had happened/ what was going on. Writing was very good. I have to say- first 14 pages- completely had me hooked. Then we went off to the dad's job and I was dying. I wish he had done something other than sell cars. To me those parts of the book just dragged. This could be my own snobbery that ...more

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Feb 24, 2009

David rated it

· review of another edition

Barclay is the author of Too Close to Home and No Time for Goodbye and he's definitely on a par with Harlan Coben for domestic suspense. In this novel, due out late Summer 09, a teen girl disappears and no one where she claimed to have worked says they even know her. Father and Mother are divorced so step-brothers, friends, lovers, and suspicous cops abound. The suspense is believable, and a very compelling page-turner. I didn't guess the twists and turns but it was all laid out logically wh...more

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Jun 10, 2011

Patrice Hoffman rated it

· review of another edition

This is the first time I'm writing a review so I'm not sure what's expected except my honest opinion. This was the first book I read by Linwood Barclay. It was an extremely fast read. The beginning started out fast paced enough (most likely because the writing is simplistic). The picture of a loving father was given from the beginning of the book which helped to justify rooting for him. The main character Tim, seems like a good guy but at times he's so gullible. Which brings me to my main r...more

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Feb 20, 2011

Bee rated it

· review of another edition

Everyone has guilty pleasures. Most peoples literary guilty pleasures may be tacky chick lit, or a bit of steamy saucy fiction. Mine are... crime novels.
Actually scratch that. It isn't even the genre on the whole; it is just this author Linwood Barclay! I actually really don't usually like grizzly, gruesome reads. I sort of feel that same about movies & TV too; in that there is so much appaulling violence and sadness on the news, why would I want to consume even more of the fictional variet...moreEveryone has guilty pleasures. Most peoples literary guilty pleasures may be tacky chick lit, or a bit of steamy saucy fiction. Mine are... crime novels.
Actually scratch that. It isn't even the genre on the whole; it is just this author Linwood Barclay! I actually really don't usually like grizzly, gruesome reads. I sort of feel that same about movies & TV too; in that there is so much appaulling violence and sadness on the news, why would I want to consume even more of the fictional variety.

BUT last year a friend recommended 'No time to say goodbye' and I always like to follow up on a good friends book tip so we can chat about it properly. I found myself so drawn in and consumed by Barclays engaging writing style that I devoured the book in no time at all.

When I spied this novel on the cheap for my kindle it was a no brainer and despite the sometimes harrowing subject matter, the speed and clarity that Barclay writes with makes it easy to speed through the book and therefore light relief from the dense Victorian-a type efforts I have mostly filled my life with this year.

The story is a classic Who Dunnit. A father comes home from work to find his teenage daughter missing. He goes to the hotel she has a summer job at to find her and is told that she has never worked there...
Now if that hasn't hooked you in ALREADY the you are obviously not as curious as me!

Fear the worst is packed with instantly likeable/relatable characters that you find yourself rooting for, along with a fair few red herrings and baddies where you are sure you are starting to guess what has happened and who not to trust; when everything shifts again and you have to question everything.

On a side note, I am a geek for details, and loved the ever so small inter-textual reference Barclay made to his previous novel (a small cross-over character) which made me feel 'rewarded' for reading multiple books and made me smile.

If you haven't ever read anything from this genre, I really would recommend it. It's more than a standard US crime novel; there is real depth here and alot of enjoy.(less)

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Aug 23, 2009

Mark rated it

· review of another edition

Barclay has done it again written a tight, well crafted tale of suspense out of a seemingly every day occurrence gone wrong.

The book is so well written and the plot and story so wonderfully strung together that I had trouble actually finding a spot to stop reading. It's very "un-put-downable."

Barclay is a master at throwing an average everyday type person into the role of crime-solver, which allows the reader to feel a closer connection to them.

Not...more

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About Linwood Barclay

After spending his formative years helping run a cottage resort and trailer park after his father died when he was 16, Linwood Barclay got his first newspaper job at the Peterborough Examiner, a small Ontario daily. In 1981, he joined the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation newspaper.

He held such positions as assistant city editor, chief copy editor, news editor, and Life sectio...more

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