Linwood Barclay A Tap on the Window

Don't get me wrong I quite like Linwood Barclay and what he does he does well...ie he looks at an ordinary man's everyday life..yes the sort of life you and I lead and everyday situations and from that shows how one simple mistake or incident can make a life unfold and all the cards come tumbling down....Take A Tap on the Window, Cal Weaver is on his way home and stops to give a lift to a young bedraggled teenage girl...yes you've got it an older man giving a lift to a young girl late at night...what could possibly goes wrong! Well naturally as this is a best seller the girl disappears and you don't have to look very far to find the no 1 suspect...yes Cal your head was right you should not have stopped to give that young girl a lift.

What follows is a story of lies/suspicion/guilt/intrigue done in the very Linwood Barclay way and guaranteed to keep the reader reading and the pages turning...and to an extent it works. The problem with reading lots of Linwood Barclay is that they all follow a similar storyline...ie a simple incident leads to lives unravelling...and so dare I say the word "formulaic" springs to mind.

In essence this is an ok read with some well written good moments take this example...At the start we quickly learn that Cal's son Scott died tragically and recent and Cal travels to the place of his death where he contemplates and tries once again to come to terms with his son's death..."As I always did, I surveyed the scene. Starting at the handicapped spot, rising past the four rows of windows, stopping at the roofline....How long would it have taken? Two seconds? Three? I saw his body falling, plummeting, hitting the pavement. Three seconds seemed about right. Certainly no more than that. What was he thinking on the way down? Was he terrified? Did he realize, once he'd gone off the edge, what he'd actually done? In those two or three seconds, had he wondered whether there was anything he could do so save himself?

So not the best Linwood Barclay (did however love Trust Your Eves) and it's always best to return to an author rather than consume all his writings in one long reading marathon session!