Timothy Blake couldn't be more ordinary. Tim is a car salesman with a half-crazy girlfriend he has no real emotional ties to, an ex-wife who's picked up the pieces of her life and moved on and a teenage daughter who spends her summers with Tim, but like all teenagers, has a life of her own. Tim's daughter works as a desk clerk at a hotel just down the road. Life is uneventful, but he has no complaints; he just kind of "goes with the flow."

Then comes the night daughter Sydney doesn't return from work. And she doesn't come home the next day either. Panicked, Tim goes to the hotel to see if her coworkers have any idea where she might be. No one there knows Sydney. They don't even recognize her picture. Every parent's worst fear has become Tim's waking nightmare. As Tim, his ex and Syd's friends pound the pavement looking for clues, they are unaware they are being watched. Not one member of the group is a former Navy SEAL or CIA; no one has martial arts training or any black ops training...they're all so normal. And yet they move ahead, slowly but surely, following the almost invisible footprints of a young woman none of knew quite as well as they would have liked to.

Tim's disappointments became my own as I agonized with Tim and his ex over the search for their daughter in this real nail-biter. Linwood Barclay has a knack for tapping into our deepest fears and exploiting them for all they're worth. FEAR THE WORST is no exception. This intense page- turner had me on pins needles from beginning to end.