No Time to Say Goodbye by Barclay Linwood

25 years ago a very recalcitrant teen name Cynthia Bigge, comes home defiantly in a drunken stupor only to wake up to the surprise of her life. Her whole family vanishes without a trace ! Twenty-five years later she is now a married woman raising a daughter with her husband, Terrence Archer , who teaches in one of those undesirable schools . Her husband is so intrigued by what has transpired in the past that he took upon himself to contact a TV station to reopen the case and search for clues. This has then opened a can of worms and starts haunting Cynthia again.
The plot was very good with a very different twist. My only quibble was the husband . As mentioned earlier, he is a teacher in one of those low class public schools. What I dislike about him was that not only did he have a foul and unrefined mouth, he was also very generous in rewarding uncouth students with A's for their awful literary efforts just because they express themselves "from the heart". He tolerates their rude behavior which makes me question if teachers in today's public schools are really like that with the lower class in our school system. They probably think they are encouraging intellectual maturity among the students by condoning their errant ways. The reason I point this out is because one student eventually becomes a key character in the story. Irritation aside, the plot compensated or my initial annoyance. I liked the ending and the way the story was represented in areas that did not involve her husband's students. Definitely a very nice murder mystery!