- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Touchstone; Reprint edition (May 10 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1439154015
- ISBN-13: 978-1439154014
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14.2 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 299 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,249,559 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"NEVER WAVE GOODBYE opens with one of the strongest dramatic twists I've read in a long time, but Doug Magee is truly just getting started. In this suburban nightmare scenario that brings to mind the best of Harlan Coben and Linwood Barclay, Magee proves himself to be a powerful new voice who separates from the pack by paying as much attention to human relationships as he does plot twists."
—Michael Koryta, author of So Cold the River
"Don't get on the bus--unless you're looking for a terrifying read. Magee shifts the suspense into drive in chapter one--and then we're off on a chilling ride to scream land."
—R.L. Stine
"NEVER SAY GOODBYE blasts right out of the chute with a terrifying premise and doesn't ease up until the final pages. It's a wrenching first novel that grips the reader personally and emotionally and makes one ask, 'What would I do in similar circumstances?'"
—C.J. Box, Edgar-winning author of Nowhere to Run
“Never Say Goodbye is a moving love story, a searing family drama, a stomach-churning thriller and one hell of a tale well-told. Go ahead and try to put it down.”
—Bryan Gruley, Edgar nominated author of Starvation Lake
"Giving nothing away, this thriller leaves you hanging on till the very end to learn who kidnapped four children on their way to camp and why. The interweaving of the stories of the children, their parents, and the kidnappers creates a delicious knot of mystery and culpability that isn't fully untangled until the redemptive finale."
—Paul Doiron, author of The Poacher’s Son
“A page turner of the first order. Scary and believable.”
—Robert Dugoni, New York Times bestselling author of Bodily Harm
Book Description
An innocent rite of passage turns into a nightmare for four couples, exposing their secrets and risking the lives of their children.
After passing the bittersweet parental milestone of putting her daughter, Sarah on the bus to sleep-away camp for the first time, Lena Trainor plans to spend the next two weeks fixing all the problems in her marriage. But when a second bus arrives to pick up Sarah for camp, no one seems to know anything about the first bus or its driver.
Sarah and three other children have been kidnapped, and within hours of the crime the parents receive an email demanding $1,000,000. When the specifics of the delivery terms throw suspicion on the parents of two of the abducted children, some of the parents begin to turn on each other, exposing fault lines in already strained marriages and forging new alliances. While the kidnapped children are living their parents' worst nightmare, the police are trying to sort the lies from the truth in conflicting stories and alibis that seem to be constantly changing.
Deftly weaving the emotional story that pits the parents of the missing campers against the police—and each other—with the fate of the kidnapped children hanging in the balance, Never Wave Goodbye will keep readers holding their breath until the last page.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Scary premise,
By
This review is from: Never Wave Goodbye: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)
As a parent, it was always hard when I let my children 'go away' to overnight sleepovers the first few times, let alone weekend tournaments and across the country meets. Doug Magee has come up with a chilling premise for his first novel Never Wave Goodbye.What if you put your child on the van for camp, waved goodbye....and then the real van came......... Four families put their nine and ten year olds on the van for a two week stay at Camp Arno. JD, the personable driver, seems great with the kids. No bells go off with any of the parents. JD delivers the kids not to camp but to his partner Mr. Everett and from there - they disappear - JD is not even privy to where they're headed. A ransom email for one million dollars is delivered to all four sets of parents. Magee teases us, slowly revealing each parent's secrets, flaws and shortcomings through small hints and foreshadowing. Surely none of them could have anything to do with the crime - not their own child? Lena Trainor provides the most frequent point of view for the parents. Out of all the parents, we come to know and empathize with her the most. Her daughter Sarah becomes the 'leader' of the kidnapped children. I was intrigued by these chapters and would have almost liked to see a bit more focus on them. The kidnappers and their point of view was chilling. Much of the focal point is on the interaction between the parents of each child and each other. Magee has captured and portrayed the pain, anguish and feelings of parents put in a situation that seems inconceivable. There were a few inconsistencies that I found a bit jarring. I liked Lena up until page 129 when she argues about one family offering to part of another family's part of the ransom. It seemed out of character with her earlier actions and feelings about getting the children back at any cost. And this one is just a little complaint - I doubt there are many 10 year olds who know how to use Facebook but not how to email. Never Wave Goodbye is full of twists and turns that build tension and will have you suspecting almost everyone, including one of the police, until the end. A strong debut novel and a great page turning read - I look forward to Magees's next novel. Wish we could do 1/2 stars - 3.5 would be my actual rating.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars (26 customer reviews) 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great until the last 50 pages,
By SCOTUS fan "Supreme Court junkie" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
As the mother of two young children who went off to camp for the first time this summer, I was riveted by this book from page one. I was sure that this could happen to me, and that's the sign of an author who's really connecting with the reader. As the book went on, I loved the different perspectives of parents, kidnappers, and children.But the end of the book was SUCH a disappointment. I don't want to give it away, but the book resolves through a clumsy device, a plot twist that could NEVER happen. Furthermore, the suspicions of many characters are never resolved - we never find out whether X or Y was involved in some way. Those who do turn out to be involved? It again seems clumsy, unrealistic. So while the events up to and until the kidnappers are revealed and the children's fate is unveiled are fascinating and well-written, even keeping you on the edge of your seat, the finale leaves a lot to be desired. 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning debut!,
By Jennifer Lawrence - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Never Wave Goodbye: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)
Lena Trainor is full of emotions as she puts her nine-year-old daughter, Sarah, on a bus to camp for the first time. She's nervous and anxious for her daughter, but her mind is also on her relationship with her husband. She's so unfocused that she really doesn't pay much attention to the camp counselor who picks up Sarah. Until a few minutes later when the real bus shows up.She hurridly begins to call the parents of the other children to be picked up. A total of four children were abducted, including Linda, Sarah's good friend; Franklin, the son of a local minister; and Tommy, the son of a local contractor. Within a few hours the parents all receive an email, demanding a $1,000,000 ransom. When the FBI is called in, secrets are revealed, causing conflict within and between the families. No one knows who to trust, they simply want their child back. When the 24-hour mark passes, they begin to wonder if they will ever see their children again. I simply cannot believe this is Magee's first novel. He reveals a story that is both captivating and chilling. Losing one's child is a parents worst nightmare, but the fact that these parents literally (although unwittingly) handed their children over to their abductors compounds it tremendously. As a parent myself, I couldn't help but feel the hurt, guilt, and anguish the parents were feeling. It probably doesn't help that my son's away at camp now, right? Never Wave Goodbye is not only a tale of suspense, but a study in the human condition, in how well one stands up to such a catastrophic event, seen from not only the parents' eyes but the of the children as well. My only complaints were very minor. First, the vehicle used to abduct the children was described several times as being a camp van, but the cover clearly shows a school bus. I know that oftentimes authors don't have much say in what their cover looks like, so I don't blame the author. The second is the maturity of the children. They are all nine years old, some from pretty affluent families. They seemed be rather naive when it came to technology, such as using a computer, sending email, etc. My oldest son was able to do these things at a fairly early age, well before the age of nine. Again, a very minor complaint, but one I thought I should mention. All issues aside, I do highly recommend this novel. It's the perfect thriller for a warm summer weekend...just don't read it while your child is away at camp! 6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fiction never seemed so real,
By John Hagendorf - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Never Wave Goodbye: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)
What really struck me about this novel is just how real to life it is. Everything from the kidnapping to what the characters were going through was very realistic. Once I started reading the novel I couldn't put it down. The more I read the more I wanted to read. It definitely keeps you in suspense. It also sends a chill down your spine seeing how this could easily happen to our own family members.
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
