Never Saw It Coming

by Lindwood Barclay

Doubleday Canada - 2011

233 pages - 1,99$

Ebook

Mysteries et thrillers

En français ici

Why this book

I've met the author at the QuebeCrime festival last October and I thought he was really cool. He has a lot of humour and knows how to keep his audience alived so I guessed he can do the same with his books. 

Synopsis

Keisha Ceylon is a psychic. At least, that's what she tells people. She watches the news for stories of missing people, then waits a few days and goes to see the family. She tells them she’s had a vision and that she may know where their missing loved one is—for a price, of course. 

Keisha's latest mark is Wendell Garfield, whose wife disappeared a week ago. She's seen him on TV, pleading for his wife to come home, or for whoever took her to let her go. Keisha tells Wendell her vision of what might have happened. Unluckily for Keisha, her vision turns out to be alarmingly close to the truth. As she wades deeper into the mystery, Keisha inadvertently finds herself caught in a web of suspicion and violence that’s much more complicated than she first thought—and which may end up with her own disappearance… 

Also includes a preview of Linwood Barclay’s newest thriller, Trust Your Eyes

What I think of it

A book that will make you forget how late it is. This novel is an expanded version of Clouded Vision and some criticize the fact that the book still looks like a short story. But as a person who sees the glass half full rather than half empty, I think that's what makes its charm. There is no need to always read books that take a month to read. There are so many complicated novels for which we need to focus to remember different characters or different plots. If books were always complex, I would find it boring. Sometimes after a hard, complex or difficult on the emotional side, I find it relaxing to read a more enjoyable and easy to read book. Never Saw It Coming is that kind of book.

Certainly, it is fast to read, but the fact remains that the tone is one of the great thrillers I like: sometimes cynical, often funny, very colorful and with a relentless pace. The characters are well drawn, the story well done.

The story? This is the story of the biter bit, a spinning wheel. We know quickly who is the culprit, but the story does not end there, since it is ultimately more about morality and what we would do in the same situation. There is a great power of questioning in this book: what would I have done if I were Keisha? Would I have done the same, better or worse? This spinning wheel brings back in some characters we thought we'll no longer see. There are a coming and going of various characters in the book, which makes it dynamic.

In a nutshell

This novel asks questions and makes you ask about your values, your decision and that, in some 233 pages. A book that reads quickly, a bit like a short story but that will appeal to readers of thrillers who love dark and funny crime fiction.