‘Never Saw it Coming’ by Linwood Barclay

Published by Orion,
February 2013.
ISBN: 978-1409141419

This is a compelling book in which the main character, Keisha Ceylon, is a con artist who  plays psychic for people looking for missing family members.  Whilst this may not seem a very sympathetic character to feel empathy with, you start to like Keisha as she gets unwittingly dragged into a case which is more disturbing than the missing persons she normally pretends to "feel".

Trying to find the wife of a seemingly upset husband turns into a game of survival, as she starts to find that there is more to the situation than a simple missing persons case.  What starts off as a possibility to help her pay the rent and support her lazy boyfriend becomes a nightmare involving murder, death, cover up and past clients as well as inflaming poor relations with the local police.

As ever with Linwood Barclay's writing this is a nicely paced well crafted story which does not give the reader obvious pointers to how the storyline will move forward from one chapter to the next.  From the start the narrative keeps you guessing, who is murderer, what is going to happen next, how will she get out of that?  Whilst you start off not really convinced that you should be on the side of the con artist, Keisha, by the end you are hoping that she will get through on top. Unfortunately as she is not truly psychic she doesn't know how it ends either!

A really interesting and compelling read.
-----
Reviewer: Amanda Brown

Linwood Barclay was born in Connecticut.  He started his journalism career in 1977 at the Peterborough Examiner, moved on to a small Oakville paper in 1979, and then to the Toronto Star in 1981 where he was, successively, assistant city editor, news editor, chief copy editor and Life section editor. He lives in Toronto with  his wife, Neetha and two children.