Long Gone: A Novel

It seems too good to be true. Alice Montgomery is attending an art exhibit when she is approached by another patron--an attractive, charming man. They talk and Alice is amazed when the man says that he is helping a friend open an art galley and he is looking for someone to run it. Alice's last job was in an art galley but since being laid off, she hasn't worked for a year. She jumps at the chance and agrees to meet the man in the next few days once he has picked out a location.In New Jersey, a teenage girl runs away. Was it typical teenage angst or had she run away to escape the bullying she is encountering in high school? Her mother had never told her about her father but had she run off to try to find him? The police investigate but don't find much in the way of answers except that her fingerprints are inside the galley that Alice has just opened.Hank is an FBI agent. He is obsessed with a man who is a Dirty John figure--he charms women, gets all of their assets in his name then disappears. The last woman who fell for his schemes is Hank's sister. The man escaped all charges after her death but Hank is determined to bring him to justice. He surveils him in his spare time even though he has been warned at work to stop and that unapproved suveillance could cost him his job.Everything is brought to a head and the disparate threads merge when Alice opens the galley one morning to find it completely stripped of everything; pictures, desks, telephones, office supplies. The only thing left is a body and it's the body of the man who is Alice's galley contact. The police question her and her answers don't satisfy them. It becomes apparent that Alice is the chief suspect and there are questions that the police aren't even investigating. Can Alice solve the murder?This is Alafaire Burke's first stand alone novel. It is fascinating to watch the plot unfold and the various threads weave together into a story that makes sense. There are hints of relationships that will continue after the case and it is always interesting to think about what happens to people swept up in a police investigation afterwards. Alice is the archtype of a young woman trying to make it on her own in New York although she has a family that can rescue her when needed. This book is recommended for mystery fans.

The main plot – a woman hired to run an art gallery comes to work the second day the gallery is open to find the room stripped bare and the man who hired her murdered – seemed interesting. That’s the reason I picked up this book.That murder, however, doesn’t happen until almost a quarter of the way into the story. The secondary story lines Burke starts before this point seem like filler, only there to pad the word count. Though I know eventually they will all come together, they give the book a scattered feel up to when the murder is revealed. And in the end one of them didn’t tie in at all, only brushed up against the main plot.It’s almost as if Burke had three plots not adequate to support three full novels so she combined them into one longer book.The pacing, too, is slow for a thriller/suspense novel. Events happen over weeks, not days or hours. While that’s more true to life, novels in this genre need a tighter timeline. Even after the murder, the pacing is more of a trot than a sprint. But there were enough twists in the storyline to keep it interesting if slow-paced.Burke also throws the F-word around a lot. For some characters and in some situations, it’s an appropriate word, but every time Alice said it, it just sounded wrong. Instead of sounding tough or with it or whatever, she just sounded crude.I picked out one of the bad guys the moment he made his first appearance.Burke should stick to her Samantha Kincaid and Ellie Hatcher series.

I had heard so much about this book that I just had to buy it and read it. But it was a bit of a let down as the book was okay, I liked it, but it was nothing like what others told me about the book. Long Gone seemed to drag on a for a while, dropping hints here and there that kept you reading. The book actually took off in the last 50 pages or so. Everything at once was thrown on your plate and you had to digest it. It would have been much better if scenarios were revealed gradually. Too much to comprehend all at once. It wasn't just an ending but a complex ending that really wasn't necessary. I felt the mother and father were not defined well and should have been. The pace was okay, steady but the story line jumped around a bit. I don't think I will be recommending this book to others.

Alice isn't the type person who aggressively goes after things she wants. She isn't even sure what she wants. All her life, things have seemed to come to her.So when she loses her job at a prestigious art museum (a job she'd fallen into), she has no idea what she'll do.Then a stranger meets her at a gallery opening and soon after offers her a job as director of a new art gallery sponsored by his wealthy client. Yeah, she'll have to put on a show of his client's artist lover two or three times a year, but the rest of the time she can choose her own exhibitors.Too good to be true, a friend warns her.And of course it is. But Alice doesn't realize it until the morning she's supposed to meet the man who hired her at the gallery and arrives to find bare walls and no paintings. And a dead body on the floor.Naturally, suspicion falls on Alice. And naturally, she works frantically to clear herself.I would have given this four stars except the beginning is a little slow, parts are confusing, the different stories don't really intertwine very well, and occasionally Alice annoyed me.But if you like cozy mysteries, you'll probably enjoy this one.

I brought the first two novels by Alafair Burke, when they were first published, mainly because I was a long standing reader of James Lee Burke, her father. I recall these first two as being quite good. I then lost track of her work and have only recently purchased Long Gone , and The EX at the same time. Sadly the promise of her first to novels has not continued.Both these books are of the predictable crime 'Puzzle', commonly churned out and passable as distraction on a plane flight or a lazing on the beach read, but ultimately tedious in, their predictability, and the very underdeveloped characters. Alafair does not have the talent for developing characters, so inevitably the reader fails to identify with, or have empathy with any of the protagonists. Alafair also does not have the talent for description of place of scene, consequently the stories are without any ambiance.I doubt that I will being buying any more of her work.

Having been a fan of Mary Higgins Clarke for many years, I have just finished her last book in the series she has been writing with Alafair Burke. Just on a whim, I decided to try a solo book by that author picking a stand-alone rather than one of her series. I seriously could not put it down and read it in less than a day! This book has so many twists and turns. Every time you think you've figured it out,it changes again. As someone who reads a lot of crime fiction/thrillers, I can usually figure out the baddies quite early but this really kept me guessing! I would definitely recommend this to anyone as one of the best and will be reading more from this author very shortly.

I liked the way the book was written as well as the story main caracters. The book has the quality of raising the attention of the reader to a few social problems.The unsual ways pedophile networks use to spread their images and contacts and simultaneously the problems that all single family parents (women in this case) face to educate a child particularly during the teenager phase. Additionally it shows in a very summarised way how the cinema industry works in America. Last but not least it touches the relatively simplistic way the different police forces in the region of NY use to investigate crime which can lead to judicial errors. The book is above the average but I cannot classify it as a good book.

Kept me guessing until the last chapter ! What a twist in the tail. I really enjoyed this as it had good characters and I could visualise the art gsllery .

If you have a Kindle - get your £1.99 spent now - you will really enjoy this book - intricate storyline, plenty of twists and turns, some red herrings and enough clues to keep you turning the pages to find out what happens next. I spotted the twist about 65% the way through the book, but in no way did that spoil the enjoyment and I was disappointed to get to the last page, as I did not want to put it down!Recommended