Take Your Breath Away: A Novel [SIGNED COPY, FIRST PRINTING]

Take Your Breath Away is the thirteenth stand-alone novel by Canadian author, Linwood Barclay. When his wife, Brie disappears from their Milford, Connecticut home, Andrew Mason sells the old house they were planning to restore, moves away and changes his last name. It's the only way he can escape from the media attention focussed on him as prime suspect, despite no body ever being found.

Six years on, he is living in nearby Stratford with Jayne Keeling and her younger brother Tyler when his former neighbour, Max rings with an incredible piece of news: Brie, or someone who looks very much like her, has turned up at their old address, demanding to know what has happened to her house, before driving off.

Even though he has steadfastly maintained his innocence, Detective Marissa Hardy has always been convinced that Andy Mason had driven back from his lakeside cabin, murdered Brie and disposed of her body, then returned to Sorrow Bay and his sleeping best friend to cement his alibi. So has Brie turned up alive? If so, why now? Where has she been, and why was she silent all this time? And why just a fleeting glimpse?

Elizabeth McBain will soon be dead of cancer, and wishes only that she could know, before she dies, what happened to her daughter six years earlier. Brie's sister Isabel has conducted a relentless harassment campaign against Andy, sure that he killed her sister. But a second sighting of Brie sows some doubts.

Barclay has crafted a gripping mystery that keeps the reader guessing and the action-packed pages turning through several climaxes (one quite gory) to the final reveals. It all feels very straight and serious until the laundromat manager enters the scene: his contributions are somehow blackly funny.

Barclay uses multiple narrators to present different aspects of the story, some of whose reliability might be in question. Certainly, they each seem to be keeping some deep, dark secrets which, as they are exposed, will have the reader second-guessing their ideas about the perpetrator. Perhaps pre-booking a chiropractic appointment for the final chapters would be wise. This is hard-to-put-down intrigue, laced with deliciously dark humour, from a master of the genre.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harlequin Australia.