22.12.09

Book Review: Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay


I hate to write negative reviews but I have to be honest and say how disappointed I was by this book. I loved Linwood Barclay's first book No Time for Goodbye so I was excited when I received a copy of his new one. The blurb sounded promising:
What's more frightening than your next door neighbours being murdered?
Finding out the killers went to the wring house...
For the Cutter family, the idea that they may have been the intended target seems crazy, but each of them has a secret they'd rather keep buried. What was on the old computer teenager Derek had salvaged? And where is it now? What does a local professor and bestselling author have on Ellen Cutter? And what does Jim Cutter know about his neighbour that even her husband didn't?
But the final secret- the secret that could save or destroy them- is in the one place no one would ever think of looking...

Too Close to Home is fourty four chapters long and unfortunatley it took me until chapter thirty seven to be gripped. I very nearly gave up and it was only the fact that I had enjoyed his first book so much which kept me going. I could not identify with any of the characters in this book and I really struggled to find them realistic. I felt as though the dialogue between them was slightly forced and this led to the whole book feeling stilted.
The idea of the book is fantastic but unfortunately I felt that Barclay failed to deliver in the way he did with No Time for Goodbye.

4 comments:

Nicole (Linus's Blanket) said...

I have issues with mysteries and thrillers where nothing happens or I am not compelled to care until so late in the book. I don't know if I would have made it as far as you managed.

Dot said...

Nicole- I kept thinking that it would get better but sadly it didn't! I was really disappointed as his first book was fantastic.

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

I've enjoyed this author in the past, but this one sounds like a bit of a sleeper. Great review though!

Dot said...

Thanks Diane, I really liked the last one so this was a bit disappointing!

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