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NEVER WAVE GOODBYE starts with an interesting premise. Four sets of parents are preparing for their children to leave for summer camp. A van from Camp Arno stops at each of their homes in order to pick up their kids. The driver, JD, comes and greets the parents. They share some small talk answering any questions, and then the driver leaves to pick up the next kid. Everything appears to be going as it is supposed to and the parents now get a chance to spend some alone time with each other until another van from Camp Arno comes to pick up the kids. This is the real van. The first was not. In fact, the camp counselors have never heard of JD and the parents fear the worst. Their children have been taken and the kidnappers are demanding one million dollars for their safe return. For the most part, the novel starts off well. The kids are unaware of their plight while the parents are frantically trying to keep calm while the police and law enforcement are doing their jobs. Magee shows the concern in each of the parents until each one is suspicious about another family (kind of like the neighbors in Rod Serling's classic THE MONSTERS ARE DUE ON MAPLE STREET) and accusations are made. "This family has financial problems," "so-and-so has been having an affair," "Not MY kid!" It is then that the book begins to lose steam and flounders. Both the plotline involving the kidnapped kids as well as the perpetrators' scheme are weak. There is a hitch involving the kidnappers and the kids are left to fend for themselves once they realize their predicament. Still, considering the background we get about the four families the children behave against type. The author does not give the kids (mostly nine- and ten-year-olds) enough credit or enough "screen time." The author is focusing on too many characters, trying to make them distinctive, but fails. Finally, the truth involving the kidnappings turns out to be a bit predictable and anticlimactic. In addition, the work has an unnecessary epilogue that just dissipates the tension even further. NEVER WAVE GOODBYE is a first novel, and I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt considering the Doug Magee's impressive background, but it still needs a lot more work. Let's hope his next book will resolve some of these problems. § Angel L. Soto is an equal opportunity reader and a book editor at a New Jersey academic publisher.
Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, June 2010
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