Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay

Never Look Away is the second Linwood Barclay novel I've read (my review of Fear the Worst here), but I've taken to collecting them now (through Bookmooch). I LOVE Harlen Coben novels and though these don't quite grip me the same way, they do fit the bill when it comes to wanting an interesting suspenseful story.

Never Look Away opens with a family's trip to an amusement park. Just after entering the park, the couple's four year old son is kidnapped and then found a few moments later abandoned in his stroller on the other side of the park. Just as David Harwood is calming down from the roller coaster ride of finding his son, he discovers his wife is now missing. As the investigation into her disappearance gets underway, suspicion falls more and more on David. His claims that his wife was depressed and suicidal appear made up. No one else has seen this side of her. His actions appear more and more guilty to the police. All during which, David never gives up looking for his wife and eventually stumbles on a mystery involving her true identity. Is she who she's said all these years? Or someone completely different? Someone he doesn't even know.

This book has several twists and turns and while I found much of it to be predictable, the book was time well spent. I find Barclay to be a comfort author. Someone you can count on to give you a good well-written story when you're in the mood to just sit down and enjoy a book. Not much thinking involved, no real depth to the story or characters. Just nice surface appeal.
The book is in bookstores March 16, 2010.
Source disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from Random House through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.