Never Coming Back

Having left London after a near-fatal stabbing, private investigator David Raker is recuperating at his dad’s old cottage, located in a costal town in Devon, when he is asked by a former girlfriend to investigate the disappearance of her sister Carrie, Carrie’s husband Paul and their two daughters.  The whole family vanished without a trace, leaving their house as if they were about to return at any moment.  With the police being no help, having given up their own investigation after the case kept leading to a dead ends, and busy with a body that has washed up on beach, it’s up to Raker to find out just what happened to this family.    

Never Coming Back, the fourth David Raker novel from Tim Weaver, has a slow start, and I did feel at  disadvantage for not having read the previous three novels featuring this character.  This feeling soon lessened once Raker begins to unfurl the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Ling's. This is when  Never Coming Back became a real page turner, and I was devouring pages to discover where the story would head next.  There were plenty of moments of uncertainty, Weaver making you think that you know what's about to happen and then completely taking the plot in another direction.  I thought that the pacing was brilliant, and a good balance between explanation and action.  Also the two completely different settings of Las Vegas and Devon made for an interesting dichotomy and varied reading.  While there are some clichés (and I am never a fan of seeing the book title in the body of the novel itself) I thought that Never Coming Back was a solid crime story, something that would be a great holiday read, and I am excited to read more of Tim Weaver's work. 


Never Coming Back is out on the 29th of August.  Thank you Real Readers for my advance copy.