A Tap on the Window - Linwood Barclay

Published by Orion Books: London, England, 2014 (2013).

Over the past few days Elise and I had a mini-holiday in Wellington, staying at the home of some friends. Rather than take a lot of reading material I looked through their bookshelf and ending up reading this novel. I had never heard of Linwood Barclay before, but he is a Canadian author, and writes a lot of detective stories. This is one such story, which borders on the 'thriller' genre in patches.

Private detective Cal Weaver, stopped at traffic lights on a rainy night, is approached by a teenage girl wanting a lift. At first he refuses her, but when she admits to knowing Cal's now-deceased son Scott, Cal decides to pick her up. After a confusing set of circumstances Claire goes missing and now Cal is determined to figure out what happened to her. He must face off against a fairly corrupt police force, a killer on the loose, the antagonistic mayor of the town, and try to repair the relationship he has with his wife which has become strained after Scott's death.

This is very much a thriller-mystery in the vein of (I assume, never having actually read or seen the following) Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train. It has a bit more language than most books I read and has a cast of quite immoral characters (though fortunately Barclay never stooped to explicit descriptions of their behaviour). Quite early on I had my suspicions about a particular character, and although these suspicions did pan out, I didn't see some other twists coming. It is a little bit over the top, and the end body count is a bit higher than most mystery books I read, but it was a fine one-off read. Not an author I'll rush back to, but in a similar situation I could see myself picking up another of his books.

Completed 18 July 2022.

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