Take Your Breath Away by Linwood Barclay.
Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of Find You First and Elevator Pitch comes a gripping psychological thriller about a formerly missing woman who has suddenly returned under mysterious circumstances.
One weekend, while Andrew Mason was on a fishing trip, his wife, Brie, vanished without a trace. Most everyone assumed Andy had got away with murder--it's always the husband, isn't it?--but the police could never build a strong case against him. For a while, Andy hit rock bottom--he drank too much to numb the pain, was abandoned by all his friends save one, nearly lost his business, and became a pariah in the place he once called home.
Now, six years later, Andy has finally put his life back together. He sold the house he once shared with Brie and moved away. Truth to tell, he wasn't sad to hear that the old place was razed and a new house built on the site. He's settled down with a new partner, Jayne, and life is good.
But Andy's peaceful world is about to shatter. One day, a woman shows up at his old address, screaming, "Where's my house? What's happened to my house?" And then, just as suddenly as she appeared, the woman--who bears a striking resemblance to Brie--is gone. The police are notified and old questions--and dark suspicions--resurface.
Could Brie really be alive after all these years? If so, where has she been? It soon becomes clear that Andy's future, and the lives of those closest to him, depends on discovering what the hell is going on. The trick will be whether he can stay alive long enough to unearth the answers.
My Thoughts
I found with some chapters when the narrator changed it would have been nice if the author had given the name of the narrator to the reader. The narrator was identified for the reader at the beginning of chapters narrated by Andrew, and then not for others. I felt some consistency in this aspect would have been appropriate. There are a lot of characters to keep track of in this book.
This was a suspenseful, thrilling book and kept me turning the pages. The plot twists just kept coming and this made for a quick read.
The typed transcripts were an interesting addition to break up the chapters in this book. I have a few other books by Linwood Barclay on my shelf and I look forward to reading more by this author and to exploring his backlist of titles.
Trigger warning: death of a parent, cancer.