Chronic writer’s block makes Zach forsake writing at home and return to the newspaper where his wife is an editor. As the new features writer he learns that his boss is, yes, his spouse. Their daughter, Angie, is starting college which creates even more worries for Zach as he convinces himself she is being stalked by a very weird young man. Their high school son, Paul, is acting peculiarly and empty beer cans appear behind the garage.

Zach’s first feature assignment has him shadowing a private detective spending hours on surveillance hoping to find the thieves who are robbing exclusive men’s stores. After several nights of boredom the thieves strike and charge off with the merchandise in behemoth sized vehicle called the “Annihilator” leaving the surveillance team in their wake.

Soon the rigors of working nights and the complexity of juggling one car among four people force Zach to buy a hybrid car known as the “Virtue” from a police auction. Now, Angie can get to class with fewer hassles and her dad should rest easier but, it is not to be. He is sure she is being followed so he decides to shadow her himself. As the reader cries, “don’t” he continues his pursuit and comical consequences occur.

But tragedy strikes when Zach goes to pick up the detective he was working with and finds the man seriously wounded and his apartment trashed. Then one of the newspaper photographers is found dead and soon, Zach himself is being followed. Danger comes from a creepy hoodlum who collects Barbie paraphernalia and there is a hilarious episode when Zach finds himself threatening to “kill” vintage Barbie and Kens to protect his own family. Then there is the chase scene where Zach’s Virtue must try to outmaneuver the Annihilator and the comedy continues. (An anthropologist could see this as a reflection of today’s society in which the opposing classes duel one another over the use of natural resources.)

Linwood Barclay truly captures the tension between parents and their growing children and the love that lies there also as the neurotic Zach misinterprets so many events but comes through triumphant in the end. There is comedy reminiscent of Janet Evanovitch’s Stephanie Plum novels yet the characters have more depth. There is laughter and tears and even a few chills down the spine as one of the villains is revealed. So, bring back Zach!

--Jane Davis