I am not too good at making accurate predictions, but my gut
feeling is that when the envelopes are opened at those award
ceremonies where folks much smarter than me name the best novel of
2009, the words “FEAR THE WORST by Linwood Barclay” are
going to be written on the piece of paper nestled inside.

If you’re familiar with Barclay’s work, you knew
this would be coming. If not, odds are you aren’t living in
Great Britain as you read this review, since Barclay is the mother
country’s top-selling crime novelist. That he is a resident
Canadian who writes crime novels set in the suburbs and small towns
of the United States, and whose work somehow resonates to such a
great degree in European countries, is one of those intriguing
factoids that provides a topic for conversation among members of
reading groups. Another puzzle is why he is not a household name in
the States, though I suspect that question will become academic
once word of FEAR THE WORST gets out. People will start reading it
and then begin the run to obtain his previous titles.

Barclay gets the reader’s attention immediately with an
everyman protagonist named Timothy Blake, who is ill-suited to
handle what is about to befall him. Blake is an auto salesman
working for a Honda dealership in Connecticut. The position is a
step down for him, given that he was a failure at running his own
place, an effort that cost him his self-esteem, his net worth and
his marriage. To make matters that much worse, his ex-wife Susanne
is now living with Bob Janigan, who, ironically enough, owns a
chain of used car dealerships that are a huge success, thanks in
large part to a combination of his slimy business practices and a
smarmy everyman persona.

Sydney, Tim and Susanne’s 17-year-old daughter, lives with
Tim during the summer while she works as a desk clerk at a local
hotel. As FEAR THE WORST opens, they are having the usual prickly
conversation that daughters of that age and fathers who love them
often engage in. By that evening, however, Syd is AWOL from home.
Worse, when Tim checks the Just Inn Time, he is told Syd has never
worked there. Tim becomes frustrated with the lack of police
progress in the case and begins taking matters into his own hands,
kicking over rocks in search of his daughter. And someone
doesn’t like that.

When Tim is lured out of town on a fool’s errand, his
house is trashed. Then one of Syd’s best friends goes
missing, even as it appears that Syd may have met with foul play.
And worse, much worse, happens. Tim starts looking like the
epicenter of every bad thing that is going on around him, which
captures the attention of the police. Among his dwindling group of
supporters, however, is Janigan. As the two men begin an uneasy,
unlikely, yet very believable alliance to determine what happened
to Syd and hopefully save her, there are forces aligned against
them who will stop at nothing to make sure they don’t
accomplish their goal. FEAR THE WORST careens to a heart-stopping
and surprising climax, which you won’t soon forget.

I gladly sacrificed a night’s sleep to read FEAR THE WORST
in one sitting from cover to cover. There really wasn’t any
other choice. It is excruciatingly suspenseful, presenting a
puzzling mystery with a solution that isn’t squarely
consistent with Occam’s Razor but is close enough --- and it
unleashes a bombshell in the final fourth of the book that
you’ll never see coming. Oh, and Denton Abagnall from
Barclay’s NO TIME FOR GOODBYE makes a surprising return of a
sort as well. Those who are calling FEAR THE WORST Barclay’s
breakout novel are understating things; this has the makings of a
blockbuster.