Everyone has their own flaws and imperfections, nobody is perfect. Whether it be a physical flaw or a mental flaw. Most mental flaws are caused from a traumatic experience. All characters in the book “No Time for Goodbye” by Linwood Barclay are fundamentally flawed in one way or another. Cynthia, the main character of the book, has been diagnosed with extreme anxiety. Enid, Cynthia’s father’s wife suffers from borderline personality disorder and Cynthia’s friend Vince Fleming has intermittent explosive disorder.

Cynthia Bigge is the main character of my book, at a young age of fourteen she woke up one day and her family was gone without a trace. The police never found out what had happened that night, the mystery became a cold case. Twenty five years later she received a call from a TV producer asking her if she wanted to be in a mystery TV show about her family disappearing (17). Cynthia said yes, thinking that it would reopen the case and she could find answers. After all these years of not knowing if her mother father and brother were alive or dead caused her to worry which lead to a stomach ulcer. Cynthia’s worries started when her family abandoned her, but she eventually started worrying and feeling anxious about everything and was diagnosed with severe anxiety. She worried about little things, such as if her daughter Grace was safe walking to school on her own, if that brown car really slowed down just to stalk her (34), or of

she left a light on at the house. At one point, she ran up to a random man in a mall and asked him if he was her brother, Todd because she thought he looked like him, when it wasn’t. Cynthia’s anxiety kept her up during the night sometimes, she often woke up to see if Grace and her husband Terry were still with her.

Enid Sloan is the antagonist in my book, she is Cynthia’s father’s other wife. Cynthia’s father had two families, the one he had with her and the one he had with Enid and their son Jeremy (392). She lied to Clayton multiple times on several different occasions, she kept him from going anywhere but work, he was basically kidnapped. Enid told Clayton that if he ever tried to divorce her or leave her she would kill their son Jeremy. One day Clayton told Enid that he was going to file for a divorce soon, as soon as he arrived at home he found his dog, hanging by a rope in the garage dead, Enid said “ I told you, you won’t be going anywhere.” These are all symptoms of borderline personality disorder. Enid is very possessive,what's hers is hers and nobody else’s. She has frequent mood swings, uncontrollable anger, suicidal thoughts. She shows uncontrollable anger when she throws a lamp at him when he was late coming home for work (402.), and shows suicidal thoughts when she talks about drowning herself in the bathtub when he wouldn't bathe with her. In her eyes, her way is the only way.

Vince Fleming was with Cynthia the night that her family perished. He was an older boy who was a bad influence on Cynthia. Cynthia’s parents had made it clear they didn’t like her seeing him (8) but she didn’t listen. Her parents were only looking out for her, they knew that Vince Fleming’s father was a criminal and lead a gang who killed certain people if they got involved with him in the wrong way, he was also a drug dealer.
Vince was showing Cynthia a switchblade that he carries with him when Cynthia’s father caught Vince and forced her to come home with him. She was drunk and didn’t remember much, she went home and went to bed. She went to bed angry at her father not knowing that that would be the last time she will see him in years. Twenty five years later, Cynthia told her husband that she was leaving for a few days to clear her head of everything that had happened recently with her families case. Terry, her husband thought that she might have gone to Vince for more answers on what had happened that night, so he went to visit Vince. Vince has intermittent explosive disorder. He greeted Terry with a gun and used angry verbal outbursts and threats, such as “ watch your back, i’m not the type of guy you mess with.” (305) He then proceeded to cause bodily harm to Terry by stabbing a table in between his fingers, causing Terry to bleed. These are all proof that Vince Fleming suffers from intermittent explosive disorder.

All the main characters in this book are fundamentally flawed, Vince Fleming having a father who ran a gang strongly influenced the way Vince developed intermittent explosive disorder. Enid having borderline personality disorder accounted for her psychotic and possessive behaviour and Cynthia having a family who left without

a trace and later finding out that Enid was planning on killing her caused her anxiety to evolve greatly.