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Never Look Away By Linwood Barclay ISBN10: 038567029X

David Harwood is a small town journalist, looking forward to a day at an amusement park with his wife Jan and their four year old son Ethan. But this is not going to be the enjoyable visit David was planning for. First Ethan goes missing briefly, and then Jan disappears. David reports Jan’s disappearance but there is no verifiable evidence that she was ever at the park. Is David attempting to cover up a murder? The more David searches, the less he realises he knows about Jan.

Just before Jan disappears, David gets a lead on a story about a controversial development on the outskirts of his town. The only problem is that his paper isn’t interested in publishing the story, even though it would revive flagging sales. Can this somehow be related to Jan’s disappearance? What is the truth, and where is Jan?

I found some elements of the story easy to predict and piece together. But by then I was caught up in David’s search for the truth. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this story is the reminder that even innocuous everyday actions can be interpreted in different ways that can make good guys look bad. And the bad guys? They’re mostly unbelievable.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith