NO SAFE HOUSE (2014)

No Safe House by Linwood Barclay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes you read a book you like but aren't inclined to read others by the same author. It was the particular story or setting  or characters that attracted you.

Sometimes you read a book and can't wait to get your hands on the next story that the author writes.

That's how it is for me with Linwood Barclay. I've read or listened to a half dozen of his books and all of them have delivered the goods. His mind works in devious ways that are absolutely delightful in a thriller!

Since I couldn't track down a preview copy of No Safe House, I actually pre-ordered it for my Kindle so I could read it as soon as it was released. Even having read the prequel No Time for Goodbye a while ago, I needn't have worried that I might not be up to speed. Barclay is a master at making sure the reader knows exactly what she/he should be aware of and makes sure the reader doesn't know the rest until the appropriate time.

In No Time for Goodbye, 14 year-old Cynthia awakes to find her entire family gone.  Twenty-five years later, with her husband Terry and young daughter Grace, she agrees to a TV documentary that will reopen the case. The aftermath is terrifying.

It's seven years later in No Safe House and we find the family still coping with issues that are causing problems. Cynthia decides to live apart from Terry and Grace while she struggles with her demons. Grace is hanging out with a young man who convinces her to so something illegal and we are off and running.

Barclay tells his tale in alternating chapters using Terry's voice in the first person followed by third person narrative about what's going on elsewhere. Sometimes the timing overlaps, which is a neat trick to pull off so successfully.

Barclay has been referred to as the 'King of the Suburban' thriller. His characters' lives don't seem much different from ours before unexpected things start happening. The good guys sometimes make questionable decisions and the bad guys sometimes do the right things.

There is  a lot of suspense and threat in his stories but Barclay seems to have a great feel for just how much violent description the reader actually wants or needs.

Some reviewers have found fault with the story for being a stretch. I haven't read a thriller yet that wasn't. A little suspension of disbelief is what makes the story such a roller-coaster ride. It's just plain fun. Can I confess that I actually cried at one point?

Bottom Line: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Title: No Safe House
Author: Linwood Barclay
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: NAL Hardcover
No. of Pages: 464 pages
ISBN: 0451414209
Copyright: August 5, 2014
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon

Bestselling author Linwood Barclay was born in the United States but moved to Canada just before turning four years old when his father's job took the family across the border.

Linwood obtained an Honors B.A. in English at Trent University, in Peterborough, Ontario.
Initially he began working for a number of local newspapers, eventually landing a job at the Toronto Star in 1981. His break came with No Time for Goodbye in 2007. It became a runaway bestseller in the U.K. selling a million copies there and elsewhere.

SMALL BLESSINGS and Simple Gifts (2014)

Although I love thrillers and mysteries, I seem to be following a course set for me by my father, who in his later years preferred to re-read favorite authors and seek out gentler stories. He did not care for the highly descriptive sex and violence that was coming into vogue, instead preferring a good, well-written story, where much is left to the imagination of the reader and the good guys win in the end.

In her debut novel (August 12, 2014), Martha Woodroof has given readers many small blessings and I, for one, am thankful. Her writing is easy and graceful. Her characters are charming and quirky. Perhaps you've dreamed of living in the small town she describes? It even has an independent bookstore! And there's just enough mystery to make you wonder what is going to happen next.

The story is a simple gift. Tom is an aging, kind, and unexciting professor of Shakespeare at a small Virginia college where the faculty live in close proximity and think they know everything about one another.

Tom's burden is his wife Marjorie, who has suffered with mental illness for many years forcing Tom and his mother-in-law Agnes into roles as caregivers.

Small unexpected changes ripple through the community when the charming and mysterious Rose is hired at the local bookstore. (I have a suspicion that author Martha Woodroof is actually Rose.)

The book jacket reminds me of Shaker art and brings to mind the words of the song Simple Gifts. And so everyone “comes down where they ought to be.”

I hate to reveal more of the story. I hope you will be as delighted and surprised by this book as I was. It is so much more than it seems on first glance.

Every time the reader thinks the story is settling into a familiar track, it isn't. Not only does the story surprise, the “characters never stop surprising themselves, and each other.”

Small Blessings put me in mind of the world author JanKaron has created in her Mitford tales, although with an absurdist twist, where foibles and human failings are recognized and tolerated with love. I hope that Martha Woodroof's characters will appear again. I missed them as soon as I read the last page.

Bottom Line: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Title: Small Blessings
Author: Martha Woodroof
Genre: Literature
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
No. of Pages: 320 pages
ISBN: 1250040523
Copyright: August 12, 2014
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon

Disclaimer: A copy of Small Blessings was provided to me by St. Martin's Press/Netgalley for review purposes.

MARTHA WOODROOF was born in the South, went to boarding school and college in New England, ran away to Texas for a while, then fetched up in Virginia. She has written for NPR, npr.org, Marketplace and Weekend America, and for the Virginia Foundation for Humanities Radio Feature Bureau. Her print essays have appeared in such newspapers as the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Small Blessings is her debut novel. She lives with her husband in the Shenandoah Valley. Their closest neighbors are cows. (Source: Amazon)