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    Long Gone: A Novel
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    Long Gone: A Novel
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    Long Gone: A Novel
    Ebook428 pages6 hours

    Long Gone: A Novel

    By Alafair Burke

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    What if everything you thought you knew turned out to be a lie?

    After a layoff and months of struggling, Alice Humphrey finally lands her dream job managing a new art gallery in Manhattan's trendy Meatpacking District. According to Drew Campbell, the well-heeled corporate representative who hires her, the gallery is a passion project for its anonymous, wealthy, and eccentric owner. Her friends think it sounds too good to be true, but Alice sees an opportunity to make a name for herself beyond the shadow of her famous father, an award-winning and controversial filmmaker.

    Everything is perfect until the morning Alice arrives at work to find the gallery gone—the space stripped bare as if it had never been there—and Drew Campbell's dead body on the floor. Overnight, Alice's dream job has vanished, and she finds herself at the center of a police investigation, with the evidence mounting against her. The phone number Drew gave her links back to a disposable phone. The artist whose work she displayed doesn't seem to exist. And the dead man she claims is Drew has been identified as someone else.

    When police discover ties between the gallery and a missing girl, Alice knows she's been set up. Now she has to prove it—a dangerous search for answers that will entangle her in a dark, high-tech criminal conspiracy and force her to unearth long-hidden secrets involving her own family … secrets that could cost Alice her life.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 21, 2011
    ISBN9780062092229
    Unavailable
    Long Gone: A Novel
    Author

    Alafair Burke

    Alafair Burke is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent novels include The Wife and The Ex, which was nominated for the Edgar Award for best novel. She also co-authors the bestselling Under Suspicion series with Mary Higgins Clark. A former prosecutor, she now teaches criminal law and lives in Manhattan and East Hampton.

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    Reviews for Long Gone

    3.5/5

    225 ratings39 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This was a monthly read for one of the groups I am in and I am very glad that it was suggested. I was completely taken in by this story and when I got into the thick of things, I did not want to stop.

      Alice Humphrey is the daughter of a world renowned director/producer. Due to some lies he told her and the exposure of his infidelity, she cut off any support he had given her and told him she wanted to make it on her own. After being out of work for months, an offer materialized that was too good to be true. She was given the opportunity to run a gallery, the only stipulation was that her first show had to be from a rather questionable photographer. After one week, the rug was pulled out from under her. The gallery was emptied out, her "boss" was dead on the floor and she became the main suspect. A second plot involved a missing girl whose fingerprints were also found in the gallery. As the noose begins to close on Alice, she works with an FBI agent, who has broken so many rules he is in danger of losing his job, to find out what really happened. The story wraps up nicely at the end, but it was not anything like what I expected. A great story.
    • 2/5
      Good idea, meh setup, bad execution.
    • 3/5
      This is my second read from Burke and I'm not sure I'm going to try her again. I found characters to be caricatures mostly in the beginning, but that got better.

      I couldn't STAND Alice. So much that I repeatedly yelled at her while listening to this and on more than one occasion I turned it off. She made stupid decisions many times over.

      There were pieces of this story (i.e. the missing girl) that had no relevancy and was superfluous to the story.

      The very end was not what I expected as a resolution, but not one I found either shocking nor interesting. Maybe by that point I was just ready to be be done with the book.

      The only reason this got 3 stars was that it kept me entertained for the commute and I was compelled to finish it to see if I was missing something.
    • 4/5
      Well written mystery with numerous twists and turns. Storyline of the missing girl wasn't needed and maybe was there to muddy the waters. Look forward to more from this author.
    • 4/5
      In reading the description of the book, I was expecting a somewhat predictable story line. The book surprised me in this regard as it had some unexpected plot twists. Overall, this is a very enjoyable thriller. It is a quick read and has an interesting mystery to be solved throughout.
    • 4/5
      Alice Humphrey’s life is not turning out exactly as she once expected.Her father is a successful movie producer, her mother a retired movie star and she herself was a bit of a famous child actor. But striking out on her own in New York City, trying to succeed without her father’s help, has been hard. Here she is, well into her 30’s and out of work for months, money running low. So when she is approached at a gallery opening by a man named Drew Campbell and offered a job as the manager of a new gallery that he is opening for a wealthy investor, it seems like a dream come true. You know what they say, that when things seem too good to be true, they probably are? Well, Alice should have listened. From the start, there are a few issues with the job, like the fact that every so often she will be required to display the photographs of an artist the investor is backing. And that those photographs are consider by some to be bordering on child pornography, bringing a religious group to picket out front of the store. But Alice is confident it can all be worked out and that things will soon quiet down. She will meet with Drew at the gallery and they will work out a plan.But when she turns up for the early morning meeting, she finds the gallery totally empty, the windows papered over and, worst of all a body on the floor. A very dead, very bloody, very shot body, the body of Drew Campbell. Can things get worse? Of course they can! It seems there is no record of this Drew Campbell ever having existed..except ones that point back to her. A photo show up of her kissing Drew, something she knows never happened, Alice’s name is on the store lease, and her glove is found with gunshot residue. It seems that Alice has gone from being an unemployed woman to being police's number one murder suspect. And maybe worse of all, it soon become apparent that she is not at all sure who she can trust.Clearly, she is being set up but by whom and why? Her father is hiding something, her brother with a severe drug problem is always in need of money. Could her on again/off again boyfriend be involved or perhaps the family lawyer who seems to know a lot more than he is saying?This is Alafair Burke’s seventh book, but her first standalone mystery after two three book series. And quite a good mystery it is, with perhaps a few flaws.I found the beginning of the book rather confusing with, perhaps, too many characters and two many story lines introduced all at once. If I had been reading a paper book, rather than listening to an audiobook, I would have flipped back to reread parts, but with an audio I have enough trouble figuring out where I am without trying that. And I cannot say that I totally understood the need for the two subplots, one of a missing NJ teenager and the other of a FBI agent trying to find the man who killed his sister. Yes, in time, all the treads get tied together but perhaps it was all a little more complex that it had to be.That being said, I enjoyed the book a good deal. Alice is a good character, smart and likable and out to do what she must to prove her innocence. There are lots and twists and turns and just when you think you understand what is going on, things go down another avenue, all leading up to an ending that I did not see coming.A good, smart, enjoyable mystery that may take a little effort to get into but will pay you back with a good ride and a great ending.
    • 4/5
      It's a little hard to follow at first as the author spends several chapters introducing individual characters. To make matters even harder we learn that some of the characters are not who they said they were. It would have been much better if scenarios were revealed gradually. There was way too much for this old brain to comprehend all at once. The characters are realistic and believable. The storyline is unique...complex... and will keep you reading. I didn't like the ending...it read almost like an afterthought and therefore lost it a star. I would recommend this book to anyone that loves a good "who-done it".
    • 2/5
      This book is mainly set in New York.Main character is Alice Humphrey she lands a dream come true job looking after an Art gallery.All is not as it seems she never meets the Artist and the man who hired her ends up dead.This is a race against time to clear Alices name as the Police have her down as Chief Suspect.A bit far fetched, confusing and silly all at the same time.
    • 3/5
      This was a nice suspenseful read. I wasn't over the moon with the characters - so it took much longer for me to get through than other books - but the story itself was well done. The author held some things close to the chest to give a decent twist at the end, however, I did feel like some of the side story was just completely irrelevant and just there as filler.

      While the story was good - for me, this was not a fast-paced page turner.
    • 4/5
      I received audio edition of this book from Library Thing as an Early Reviewer in exchange for a review.This is the first book that I have read of Alafair Burke and was delighted that I received it as an audio edition.Long Gone was an amusing story about a privileged daughter, Alice Humphrey who after months of unemployment finally finds the perfect job running a new art gallery in a trendy area of New York without the assistance of her family connections.She is hired by Drew Campbell, the well-suited corporate representative who explains the unnamed, rich, and peculiar owner wants the gallery as a passionate venture. She discovers that next big avant grade artist and everything is coming up roses…until she walks in on a dead body one morning.This thriller is fast paced and takes us on an unbelievable, surprising, and twisting ride through the art world, unsolved murders, and depravity of human nature.Accused of murder, unemployed, and wondering what happened, Alice searches for explanations.Read this book and see how she finds answers and solves some of the mysteries. I look forward to more books by Alafair Burke.
    • 4/5
      Alice Humphrey lands her dream job in a New York gallery after months of unemployment. Things are going well until a religious group protests some of the photographs calling them pornography. Things get worse when Alice arrives at the gallery early one morning and finds it stripped. She also finds the man who hired her...dead. Alice also finds herself a suspect and in the middle of a very big mess.It took me a little while to get into this story. But, once I figured everybody out, I liked it. I especially like Alice. She wasn't a damsel in distress, she took charge and tried to find answers herself. A bit complicated at times, but overall, an enjoyable mystery.
    • 4/5
      Although Alafair Burke is well known for her series fiction, especially the Ellie Hatcher books, Long Gone, her seventh novel, is the first standalone thriller she has written. This one is a page-turner from start to finish, and actor/singer Tamara Marston, reader of this 8-CD, 10-hour, audio book, does her part to keep the action flowing.Alice Humphrey, the heroine of Long Gone, comes from money. Her father is a still-famous Oscar Award winning movie director and her mother is the actress who retired from films after marrying him. Even Alice, as a former child actress, is still considered somewhat of a celebrity. But hard times have come to Alice’s New York City lifestyle – she has been unemployed for way too long, and moving back in with her parents is a short-term solution, at best.When, out of nowhere, Alice is offered what seems to be her dream job, managing her own art gallery, she only hesitates for a moment before accepting the stranger’s offer. There is, however, one major catch: once every quarter or so she will be required to show the rather weird artwork produced by the young boyfriend of the gallery’s elderly owner. Figuring that she can work around that part of the deal, Alice takes the job.All goes well at first, including the first exhibit of her patron’s chosen artwork, which begins to sell surprisingly well on the Internet after the gallery’s opening night show. But everything is snatched from Alice in a flash on the morning she comes in to open the gallery and finds it empty of every stick of furniture and artwork that had been there when she left the night before. All she can find is a dead body: the man who hired her to run the gallery.Suddenly, Alice is again out of work. Much worse, she is now an out of work murder suspect.Long Gone is full of twists and curves that leave Alice and the reader wondering if anyone can be trusted. Whose side is the concerned FBI agent really on? What is Alice’s father hiding? Does the trusted family lawyer know more than he is willing to discuss with Alice? Just who are the mystery artist and his billionaire benefactor, and why did they choose Alice for the job? Is someone framing Alice for murder in order to get even with her father?Alafair Burke has created a world in which very little is really as it appears to be. She has populated that world with a cast of characters guaranteed to intrigue and confuse the reader even as the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place. Do not get over confident – because there are twists and surprises to the very end. Pay attention, dear reader; this is not one of those thrillers you can read while watching “Dancing with the Stars.”Rated at: 4.0
    • 4/5
      I recently read and reviewed my first Alafair Burke book - 212 - part of a series and really enjoyed it. Long Gone is Burke's latest book and it's a stand alone.Alice Humphrey is determined not to rely on her father's money to support her any longer. After months of job searching, she jumps at the chance when Drew Campbell offers her a job managing a small art gallery. The owner is a bit eccentric, so she'll have to go with his decisions to show some controversial works. Her friends express doubts, but Alice is determined to make it work.And it does - until the morning she comes to work and finds the place stripped down. And Drew Campbell dead in the middle of the gallery. Only his name's not Drew...and Alice is fast becoming the prime suspect.Determined to prove her innocence, Alice sets out to find the real murderer and clear her name. But everywhere she turns, someone else has been there first...This is the plot line that sucked me in from the beginning. The terror in finding out that someone has set you up. This is the strong suit of Long Gone. Lots of red herrings and questions are raised with Alice's family's past, the assigned FBI agent's dedication (or lack of) to the case and whose interests does the family lawyer really have at heart? However there are two additional stories being told as well - that of a missing teenager and and an FBI agent's quest to find the killer of his sister. I wondered how they would all tie together. The teenager does, but I found the agent's tale a bit of a square peg in a round hole.Long Gone is a fast paced pager turner with lots of twists and a great ending. Burke has succeeded in stepping out of the series mode to try something different. She's definitely on my must read list.
    • 4/5
      I liked it because of the internet aspect. I did wonder about the title. I kept waiting for more of the book to be about the character who was, "long gone" but the book was mostly about Alice.
    • 4/5
      I enjoy books that twist and turn, and this one didn't disappoint. There were so many story lines happening, I couldn't fathom how the author could possibly tie them together. I loved trying figure out what was going to happen only to be surprised, again and again. My only complaint was near the end when Alice and Arthur were having dinner. I felt like something was missing when Alice was telling him what she thought happened at Mia's house. It just seemed there was no basis to how she was able to jump to all those conclusions. Overall, I enjoyed the book and will definitely pick up her next one.
    • 4/5
      Overall Rating 3.75Character Rating 3.75Thriller Rating 3.75Note: This is the first time that I have read Alafair Burke and I was not disappointed at all. She is very creative and her story-telling abilities are fantastic.What I Loved: Long Gone kept me on my toes from beginning to end. I was never quite sure where the story was going. It kind of reminded me of the first time I read Kiss the Girls and how all the characters wove together but not in obvious ways. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to find out what was going to happen and more than once I was caught off guard by the twists. This really was a case of fantastic storytelling.What I Liked: Alice Humphreys is the main character in Long Gone and she is a pretty good leading lady. She is thrown into a situation of being questioned for something she didn't do and you see most of the story from her POV. I do like how the story switches POV and lets you see how it unfolds from the victim's mother POV, the cops POV, and the FBI agents POV. It is Alice's POV that was the favorite of mine though as she was having to piece everything together to save her own life.Complaints: Overall this was a fantastic book but the beginning was a little choppy for me. Took a good 5 to 6 chapters for the story settle but once it did I enjoyed the thrilling ride it took me on.Why I gave it a 3.75: Other than a choppy beginning, this is one of the better thrillers that I have read. I will be reading other books by Alafair in the future!
    • 2/5
      Alice Humphrey has her dream job working at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. That is until she was laid off. One bright moment did come from Alice’s unemployment. She was offered a job working for Drew as the main art curator for a small, private museum in the meat packing district. Alice believes there has to be a catch and there is. The artist is really different. His art work is almost riding on the edge of being pornographic. Alice figures she can handle one crazy artist. Though, when Alice arrives at the art galley to begin her first day, she receives a huge surprise. Drew is dead lying in a pool of blood. Alice becomes the prime suspect. Alice must find the true killer before she becomes a piece of art. When I first eyed this book, it sounded right up my alley. I love a good mystery. Unfortunately, this book was just so, so for me. In fact, I would have given up on this book if it was not for the fact that I chose to do the audio version of this book versus the print version. Tamara Marston did a good job doing the audio version of this book. She could switch it up when it came to the male and female characters. There was crude language used thought out the story. Which I was not offended by but other readers may be. I agree with some of the other readers that the many different story lines coming at me all at the same time were a bit much and hard to untangle. Once, I got the story lines figured out as to how they meshed together, I was able to enjoy it better but not much. Most of the characters were dull. Alice was good but she took a while for me to warm up to her as I found her whiny and timid but as the story progressed she grew a back bone. Overall, I was Long Gone a long time ago but I listened to the whole book hoping it would get better but it never really did.
    • 4/5
      As my first Burke book, in CD form, what fun to find a new author, for me, who has written several mystery books that I am now looking forward to! Long Gone moved right along as a great story with several puzzle pieces that would all come together in a solution---perfect mystery making material. I was happy to find that Burke knows exactly what she is talking/writing about when it comes to legal subjects because of her experience as a prosecutor and a teacher of criminal law. The novel gives a wonderfully frightening description of "what do you do when it looks as though there is no way out?"
    • 5/5
      Alafair Burke just won a place in the club of the 20 best authors of thrillers in the USA. Plus, you will remember this book.It has substance, it made me think of Stendhal, the French romantic author of The Red and the Black, because the story comes out of the soul of the participants, not from the mechanics of the drama. Two main stories alternate in the book: on one hand, a teenager disappears; on the other Alice the self-doubting heiress of some rich mogul gets a new job and falls in a trap. She has been chosen to manage an art gallery, only to discover the body of her employer and all kinds of evidence mounting against her. She thinks somebody frames her, her father thinks it is all against him. We expect that the two stories will mesh, but when they do, it is not the way we thought it would. The motives here are complex, so the solution is too. But it all makes good sense: the psychology of each character is excellent. On the audio: if you ever tried to read for a blind friend, you know how hard it is to maintain liveliness and interest in your voice: we can all do that for the first two pages, but then it becomes harder to focus, and this is a ten hours book. This reading by Tamara Marston is so good, you would listen to ANY story she reads. She has a contralto voice that allows her to do convincing impersonations of male-female dialogs. I certainly enjoyed the audio.
    • 3/5
      A good story, if a bit touchy-feely for a thriller. A girl's thriller I guess. Extra estrogen. But a decent amount of tension. Only one of the culprits actually surprised me and so while interesting wasn't the most original, but then again that would be a tall order considering the genre. Alice I found to be a bit too realistic if you know what I mean. Indecisive, ineffectual and easily manipulated she barely did anything to get a handle on what was happening to her. Different, I have to give it that, but I don't know...I couldn't really care because she didn't seem to. I think she felt that somehow she'd skate into a solution like she skated through the rest of her life. And her father (who I kept picturing as John Huston) was completely weird...as if he was channeling Oprah or something. And I remember wondering several times at some particular word usages; I can't remember any offhand, but If I do, I'll edit. Suffice to say they were odd enough to pull me out of the story for a sec. Still, I might give another one of Ms. Burke's books a try someday.
    • 4/5
      Well written and plotted. Alice arrives for work managing an art gallery in NYC to find a dead body and a cleaned out gallery. The story unfolds with suspense as many friends and family seem to be involved and Alice appears to be guilty of a variety of very serious crimes.
    • 5/5
      Excellent, intricately plotted, genuine characters. It was a pleasure to see the threads woven together. Great book.
    • 4/5
      Alice Humphrey has been out of work for way too long. When Drew Campbell approaches her about managing a new art gallery she jumps at the chance. The only stipulation is that she must display the art of the owners lover a few times a year, but then she will be free to choose which art is displayed. To Alice, this is a dream come true. Her problems begin when the lover of the owner will only correspond with her via email and text messages. To make matters worse, his “art” is very unconventional. So much so that people picket the art show calling his work tasteless and pornographic, while Alice is forced to feign interest in it to sell it. When Drew calls her up and asks her to meet him at the gallery one morning, she arrives to find the gallery cleaned out. The windows are covered and the only thing in the space is the dead body of Drew, and Alice is the suspected killer.In Long Gone, Ms. Burke has crafted a very taught psychological thriller. The twists and turns keep you guessing, and you won’t see the ending coming. Typically when I read a mystery I spend a majority of my time trying to figure out “whodunnit”, and I wasn’t able to guess this time around. My only problem with this book was the setup. It starts out really slow, and introduces a lot of characters and story lines. I had a hard time getting into it. Once the action picked up, it REALLY picked up, and I couldn’t put it down. I highly recommend this novel to any murder/mystery fan.(Review copy courtesy of NetGalley)
    • 4/5
      I had never read anything by Alafair Burke. She has written two series of three books each. This one is a stand-alone, a suspense novel set in New York City.The story is about Alice Humphrey, a former child star and daughter of a big name director. She has purposely gone on her own after learning that her father had had affairs, but is having a tough time since she lost her job at a museum. She was an art history major, so she is at the opening of an artist's show when she is approached by a handsome man. They chat and when he learns about her art background, he offers her a job managing a new gallery. He says she would be required to show some "unconventional" photographs done by the owner's boy toy several times a year, but in between she could select the art for the gallery. The job sounds too good to be true, but at the end of the day she desperately needs work and decides to sign on. A few days later her boss, the handsome guy, asks her to meet him early at the gallery. She arrives to find the windows covered with brown paper and the gallery empty except for his quite dead body in a pool of blood. The prime suspect? Alice of course.I had a problem with the beginning of this book. Several story lines are introduced in separate chapters, none of them seeming to have any relationship to the others. For instance, there is a missing 16 year old girl from New Jersey. What? Then there is Alice's brother who is a recovering drug addict. Several times I had to turn back to read again who a character was and what their story was. Of course everything eventually comes together and once you get into the book it becomes absorbing, if a little confusing.I don't normally try to solve the mystery in a good book because I enjoy just going along for the ride. Surprise me. In Long Gone I don't think I could have solved it if I had tried. The convoluted twists and turns are beyond my imagination but always make sense. However, I think if I had time I would read the book again to see if my impression that there is a lack of foreshadowing is true. You may be a better puzzle solver than I am, or less gullible, but I would bet everyone will be shocked at the end.I do recommend this book and this author. Burke has been a prosecutor and a police advisor. She lives in New York. All of this lends itself to sense of actually being in the city. For myself, I intend to find and read her two series, one about a NYPD detective, and the other about a Portland Deputy District Attorney. Happy reading.
    • 4/5
      A tale of the inexplicableWhile Alafair Burke has been on my radar since she published her first novel, I haven’t had the opportunity to read her before now. And perhaps it’s best that I held off, as Long Gone is her first stand alone novel. With the profusion of series being published these days (Burke writes two), I’ve begun to cherish the rare stand alones. What really got me to finally pick up Burke’s work was the description of the plot. I’m a sucker for tales of the inexplicable. This one revolves around Alice Humphrey. Alice was a child of privilege, daughter of a famous filmmaker and an Oscar-winning actress. She’s been somewhat aimless in her adult life, but is making a real stab at independence now that she’s deep into her thirties. Unfortunately, she’s been out of work for eight months and her options are narrowing. Paying jobs in the art world are few and far between. Then she makes a fortuitous connection at an art show. It seems perfectly organic when Drew Campbell offers her a dream job managing a small gallery. She spends the next several weeks thrilled to be working towards the gallery’s debut, but the very first show opens to unwelcome controversy. She and Drew plan an early morning strategy session to deal with it, but when Alice arrives, the windows are covered with paper. Inside, the space is stripped completely bare—with the exception of Drew’s bloody body. Alice has no idea what’s going on, or why there is suddenly highly incriminating evidence surfacing, such as a photo of her kissing Drew. And while the proof is right in front of her eyes, Alice knows that she never kissed Drew.That is the main story of Long Gone, but it’s actually only one of three narrative threads. The others concern a missing teenager and a rogue FBI agent on a personal vendetta. How do all of these stories come together? You may occasionally think you’ve got part of the mystery figured, but it’s near impossible to get all of the pieces to fit together until the final reveals.Overall, this was a strong introduction to Burke’s work. The novel was fast-paced and enjoyably complex. Characters were adequately fleshed out and sympathetic. I can’t claim that every twist and revelation took me by surprise, but enough of them did to make for a thriller that lived up to its billing.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed Long Gone very much. It begins with 3 stories that, once intertwined, become enthralling. There are a few twists and turns that I was not expecting. Love when books actually surprise me. I did not want to put it down.
    • 4/5
      After a layoff and months of struggling, Alice Humphrey finally lands her dream job managing a new art gallery in Manhattan's trendy Meatpacking District. According to Drew Campbell, the well-heeled corporate representative who hires her, the gallery is a passion project for its anonymous, wealthy, and eccentric owner. Her friends think it sounds too good to be true, but Alice sees an opportunity to make a name for herself beyond the shadow of her famous father, an award-winning and controversial filmmaker. Everything is perfect until the morning Alice arrives at work to find the gallery gone - the place stripped bare as if it had never been there - and Drew Campbell's dead body on the floor.
    • 4/5
      Although a good read, I didn't love this as much as I liked Alafair's other works. It took me far longer to read, although the last third went by in a blink. I think part of the issue was that I didn't find Alice to be particularly likeable and without Ellie or JJ, didn't care much for the NYPD officers/detectives. I could have done without Becca Stevenson and Alice's brother Ben. I didn't feel that either added anything or did anything to advance the plot. If anything, they distracted from the main plot and, especially with Becca, I found the sudden changes back to her case to be disjointing. I don't feel that the pages should have been turned back to Alice's case though, as I think the book was overall too long. Did not see the final Arthur Conin twist coming and found it a shame how that turned out.
    • 4/5
      This is Alafair Burke's first stand-alone thriller, and although there were some weak points, I really enjoyed it. Alice Humphrey, former child star and daughter to a famous and controversial film-maker and a former starlet, was laid off months ago and is trying to make it without her father's help. By chance, or so she thinks, she is offered her dream job managing an art gallery. The only caveats are that she must show the work of the backer's lover several times a year and that the gallery's backer remains anonymous, even to her.Humphrey hosts a somewhat successful opening for the reclusive artist, and then a religious group starts picketing and accusing the exhibition of including child pornography. A stunned Alice asks Drew Campbell, her go-between for the artist and the backer, to put her in touch with them so she can sort things out. Drew asks her to meet him at the gallery and Alice arrives to find the gallery completely empty and Drew dead on the floor. Duh, duh, duuuuuuuh.I liked Alice Humphrey. She is a solid character with some flaws, like a regular person. Her parents and some of the other characters were a little flat. Having two other subplots within the book seemed a little awkward at times. I didn't see how they related for most of the book, but all the pieces were tied up at the end - too quickly. The ending was kind of abrupt. I liked Burke's use of facebook and social media to show how comments and innocently sharing likes and interests with the whole world can be used to harm someone. I've only read one other novel by Alafair Burke, and I will be reading more.
    • 1/5
      This is the second book I've read by Alafair Burke. The first one, 212, was just okay, but I was willing to give Long Gone a try.Ooof. It felt like I read this book for at least 10 years. I kept thinking how much I wanted to quit reading it and then realizing I was far enough in that it seemed dumb to stop. I had that conversation with myself about every 50 pages all the way through to the 349 pages my advance copy has. Honestly it was like being trapped in a studio apartment with the kitchen sink drip drip dripping.I'll admit that I am a huge fan of Ms. Burke's father's books. Her father is James Lee Burke who I think is one of the finest writers in just about any genre and it would be logical for me to compare them, although I've tried hard not to do so. That's been relatively easy since Ms. Burke's writing and storytelling is very different than his. Having said that, this was just awful. Actually, not exactly awful, just very very generic. I had a really hard time differentiating the characters and when she switched point of view I'd have to go back and try to figure out who the person was (even when I'd read about them 20 pages before). Seriously. Same tone of voice, same turn of phrase for every single character.So, I hated this. I finished it, but I hated it. I won't be reading any of her books again soon.