Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay

In Never Look Away, David Harwood, a reporter with the Promise Falls Standard, is working on a big story. His editor keeps shutting it down, but David can't figure out why. All of a sudden, though, David has bigger priorities. During a family outing, there's a mysterious and troubling disappearance. After the police uncover evidence pointing to David as a suspect in the disappearance, David mounts his own investigation to clear his name and restore his family.

This is the first book I've read of Barclay's and I can safely say it will not be the last. I loved it! The story was sensational, intense and left me breathless. Just when I got to a point where I could put the book down and take a break from reading, I'd come across a sentence or two that would make that impossible. I had to read one more chapter...then another. Barclay had me on the edge of my seat screaming "NO WAY" more than once.

The most amazing thing was that Barclay made it all seem so real, like this could really happen. David was just an ordinary guy with a wife and child. Perhaps one of his articles could land him in a bit of trouble, but not this. So let me ask you: Just how well do you know the people around you? If your answer is "pretty well", you're not alone. David probably thought that very thing when he left on the family outing that morning. Scary stuff.

Besides the main story, Barclay also included details of the newspaper business in the internet age and how the newspapers were adapting to the changing technology. I had no idea that articles could be (or would be) farmed out abroad. There was also information on privately-owned prisons from an article that David was working on. All really interesting stuff.

If I haven't convinced you to read this book yet, just take a look at this fantastic trailer:


Want to read other reviews? Here's one from Luanne at A Bookworm's World and one from Nicola at Back to Books.

Highly recommended. I'm going to hunt down more books by this author. He's definitely one of my new favourites.

For more information about this book, please visit the Random House Canada website.

For more information about the author, his other books and other stuff, please visit Linwood Barclay's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at Random House Canada for this review copy.

Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay, Doubleday Canada (Random House of Canada), ©2010. ISBN 9780385668040(Hardcover), 415p.