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lauraborkpower's review against another edition
2.0
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 use the term "bum" to refer to a behind). It's a terrifying premise (I'd imagine especially for parents), but Barclay mucks about with a lot of twists, one of which is absolutely--ABSOLUTELY--unnecessary. Also, he's got a huge, glaring, flamboyant Chekhov's Gun: the moose. This is not a spoiler, and will only make your life easier. Don't mind the moose. Enough said.
Barclay also does something I tell my creative writing students not to do, which is write this line: "A solitary tear ran down her left cheek" (398). I tell them to avoid this because solitary tears appear only in mediocre books and movies. Hmm. This actually applies to FTW in more ways than one, since by page 50 or so, I was already imagining how much money this will make when it's turned into a film. Which it will be, most likely in about two years. So look for it. And watch for that solitary tear.
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 use the term "bum" to refer to a behind). It's a terrifying premise (I'd imagine especially for parents), but Barclay mucks about with a lot of twists, one of which is absolutely--ABSOLUTELY--unnecessary. Also, he's got a huge, glaring, flamboyant Chekhov's Gun: the moose. This is not a spoiler, and will only make your life easier. Don't mind the moose. Enough said.
Barclay also does something I tell my creative writing students not to do, which is write this line: "A solitary tear ran down her left cheek" (398). I tell them to avoid this because solitary tears appear only in mediocre books and movies. Hmm. This actually applies to FTW in more ways than one, since by page 50 or so, I was already imagining how much money this will make when it's turned into a film. Which it will be, most likely in about two years. So look for it. And watch for that solitary tear.
legohelmet's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
rocksthereader's review against another edition
4.0
This has to be every parent's worst nightmare - for a child to go missing and not knowing why. I kept wondering, what would I do in this situation? I found it hard to put down.
wrentheblurry's review against another edition
2.0
I struggled to get 55% in, couldn't continue, so I skimmed from that point until the end. By the time I got to the end, I was glad that I hadn't read any more. The premise intrigues me, but the execution was cheesy, a bit convoluted, and the whole thing left me with the same feeling as a mediocre made-for-TV movie.
lisawhelpley's review against another edition
3.0
A very quick read and good suspense. I liked that the author kept in one character's first person the entire time.
beastreader's review against another edition
4.0
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 tells Tim that no one by the name of Sydney has ever worked at the hotel before. Also, Sydney’s friends say Sydney was acting odd but they didn’t know why. Soon Tim is on the hunt to locate his daughter. All clues point to a dark and dangerous world of deception and lies. What did Sydney get herself into and what happened to her? These are all questions that Tim will try to find answers to in Fear the Worst.
From the first page till the last one, you will be sitting on the edge of your seat with breathless anticipation. Tim is just a normal father, who loves his daughter dearly. He draws from such strong emotions of fear, anger, and loss that you can’t help but feel for him. He carries this story all the way through. I have to admit that Fear the Worst is the first novel I have read by this very talented author, Linwood Barclay. After completing this book, all I am wondering now is why it took me so long to check Mr. Barclay’s work out. Well I won’t make that mistake again.
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 tells Tim that no one by the name of Sydney has ever worked at the hotel before. Also, Sydney’s friends say Sydney was acting odd but they didn’t know why. Soon Tim is on the hunt to locate his daughter. All clues point to a dark and dangerous world of deception and lies. What did Sydney get herself into and what happened to her? These are all questions that Tim will try to find answers to in Fear the Worst.
From the first page till the last one, you will be sitting on the edge of your seat with breathless anticipation. Tim is just a normal father, who loves his daughter dearly. He draws from such strong emotions of fear, anger, and loss that you can’t help but feel for him. He carries this story all the way through. I have to admit that Fear the Worst is the first novel I have read by this very talented author, Linwood Barclay. After completing this book, all I am wondering now is why it took me so long to check Mr. Barclay’s work out. Well I won’t make that mistake again.
jacki_f's review against another edition
2.0
What would you do if your teenage daughter vanished one day, without warning? That's what happens to Tim Blake. After his daughter Sydney fails to come home, he goes to her workplace to see if she turned up for work that day, but they tell him they don't know her and she's never worked there. Then her car turns up with bloodstains in it - and suddenly the police seem to think that he's the most likely suspect behind her disappearance.
It's an intriguing premise, but Fear The Worst is a very slow build. Barclay's other books grabbed me from the outset, but this one took me a long time to pull me in and I have to say that I never felt particularly hooked. Things do happen: in fact, the plot is littered with clues (and red herrings), but rather than building the intrigue they somehow just feel formulaic. None of the characters feel like real people, but the villains are particularly devoid of any reason for existing other than to be villainous.
The plot reminded me in many ways of Hold Tight by Harlan Coben (also a thriller about a father searching for his missing teen). But unlike Coben's intricate storyline, Fear The Worst is almost entirely devoid of sub-plots. With hindsight, I can see that this book was carefully plotted. Almost every character has a reason for being introduced, almost every casual conversation has some later relevance. But the net effect is that it takes a long time to get anywhere and I for one got bored.
This is the third Linwood Barclay novel that I've read and I have to say that endings are not his strong point. The ending of this book is not quite as silly as No Time For Goodbye (which jumped the shark in a big way), but it comes close. The good thing is that he doesn't drag it out - however this also means that several plot elements are never resolved. It would have been more satisfying to know what happened next, and it also would have been more satisfying to understand who the villains were and why they were doing what they did.
Not a total disaster - but very disappointing.
It's an intriguing premise, but Fear The Worst is a very slow build. Barclay's other books grabbed me from the outset, but this one took me a long time to pull me in and I have to say that I never felt particularly hooked. Things do happen: in fact, the plot is littered with clues (and red herrings), but rather than building the intrigue they somehow just feel formulaic. None of the characters feel like real people, but the villains are particularly devoid of any reason for existing other than to be villainous.
The plot reminded me in many ways of Hold Tight by Harlan Coben (also a thriller about a father searching for his missing teen). But unlike Coben's intricate storyline, Fear The Worst is almost entirely devoid of sub-plots. With hindsight, I can see that this book was carefully plotted. Almost every character has a reason for being introduced, almost every casual conversation has some later relevance. But the net effect is that it takes a long time to get anywhere and I for one got bored.
This is the third Linwood Barclay novel that I've read and I have to say that endings are not his strong point. The ending of this book is not quite as silly as No Time For Goodbye (which jumped the shark in a big way), but it comes close. The good thing is that he doesn't drag it out - however this also means that several plot elements are never resolved. It would have been more satisfying to know what happened next, and it also would have been more satisfying to understand who the villains were and why they were doing what they did.
Not a total disaster - but very disappointing.
kcfromaustcrime's review against another edition
4.0
It's probably heresy to admit this - but there were a few things about this book that made it sound less attractive than it could have. Not least of all the plot of a teenage girl going missing in circumstances sounding suspiciously like a run-away. Teenage angst is a subject normally avoided in my reading choices. How wrong can you possibly get?
FEAR THE WORST is the third book from Canadian author Linwood Barclay, the earlier two being NO TIME FOR GOODBYE and TOO CLOSE TO HOME. FEAR THE WORST is really the story of Tim Blake and how his life goes completely pear-shaped when his teenage daughter doesn't come home after a normal start at her summer day job. Nothing has gone from her room. She's not answering her telephone. No friends admit to having seen her. She simply vanished. Stranger still - the hotel where she's supposedly been working say that Sydney Blake has never worked there. Tim is a pretty normal divorced man. He works as a car salesman, he's trying to maintain a relationship with his daughter, he's not particularly jealous of his ex-wife's new boyfriend. He has got himself into a very messy relationship with a woman who is definitely not quite right, but he's trying to do the right thing about her as well. He's even trying to be a good role model for his daughter's teenage friends - especially Patty. An unlikely best friend, Patty comes from a very dysfunctional background and she's very very different from Tim's Syd.
Tim's problems start when the police seem to be more interested in proving he killed his daughter, than actually looking for her, but things really start to get complicated when he's lured to Seattle on a false report and returns to find his house trashed and drugs planted there. The police find Syd's car only to discover there's blood on it - not just Syd's; and there's something going on with Patty and Syd's ex-boyfriend Jeff. As Tim searches for Syd more and more weird things (and people) start falling out of the cracks of what Tim thought he knew about his daughter.
FEAR THE WORST ticks all the "page turning" boxes. The action is fast and frenzied, and whilst our hero does take a bit of a battering, he's not made out to be super-human. He's believable. The supporting cast of characters - Patty, Tim's ex-wife, her new boyfriend Bob, all have some shape and depth to them. The grudging co-operation which slowly builds between Bob and Tim is good, again believable. The plot is complex but not complicated to follow, the twists and turns built into Syd's life realistically, adding some blips in Tim's along the way just to show sometimes life can come back and bite you when you least expect it.
Every now and then along comes a book that I can really say was a page turner. FEAR THE WORST is definitely one of them.
FEAR THE WORST is the third book from Canadian author Linwood Barclay, the earlier two being NO TIME FOR GOODBYE and TOO CLOSE TO HOME. FEAR THE WORST is really the story of Tim Blake and how his life goes completely pear-shaped when his teenage daughter doesn't come home after a normal start at her summer day job. Nothing has gone from her room. She's not answering her telephone. No friends admit to having seen her. She simply vanished. Stranger still - the hotel where she's supposedly been working say that Sydney Blake has never worked there. Tim is a pretty normal divorced man. He works as a car salesman, he's trying to maintain a relationship with his daughter, he's not particularly jealous of his ex-wife's new boyfriend. He has got himself into a very messy relationship with a woman who is definitely not quite right, but he's trying to do the right thing about her as well. He's even trying to be a good role model for his daughter's teenage friends - especially Patty. An unlikely best friend, Patty comes from a very dysfunctional background and she's very very different from Tim's Syd.
Tim's problems start when the police seem to be more interested in proving he killed his daughter, than actually looking for her, but things really start to get complicated when he's lured to Seattle on a false report and returns to find his house trashed and drugs planted there. The police find Syd's car only to discover there's blood on it - not just Syd's; and there's something going on with Patty and Syd's ex-boyfriend Jeff. As Tim searches for Syd more and more weird things (and people) start falling out of the cracks of what Tim thought he knew about his daughter.
FEAR THE WORST ticks all the "page turning" boxes. The action is fast and frenzied, and whilst our hero does take a bit of a battering, he's not made out to be super-human. He's believable. The supporting cast of characters - Patty, Tim's ex-wife, her new boyfriend Bob, all have some shape and depth to them. The grudging co-operation which slowly builds between Bob and Tim is good, again believable. The plot is complex but not complicated to follow, the twists and turns built into Syd's life realistically, adding some blips in Tim's along the way just to show sometimes life can come back and bite you when you least expect it.
Every now and then along comes a book that I can really say was a page turner. FEAR THE WORST is definitely one of them.