Onyx reviews: Find You First by Linwood Barclay

Reviewed by Bev Vincent, 3/15/2021

The fates of nine strangers are the focus of the latest thriller from Linwood Barclay. Miles Cookson, who made billions by developing popular apps but never found the time to have a family, wants to vastly improve the fortunes of these individuals, while at the same time someone else wants to see them dead. Not just dead...gone. Completely eradicated from the face of the earth.

Chloe, an aspiring filmmaker who works as a waitress at a diner, unwittingly sets events in motion when she uploads her DNA to a service that matches her with unknown family members. Chloe was born through artificial insemination, so she knows nothing about her father. She gets a hit on a half sibling who lives nearby and decides to reach out to him. Todd, whose ultimate fate is revealed in the book's opening chapter, isn't the kind of family member one would necessarily want to locate. He preys on vulnerable elderly people, robbing them of whatever remains of their life's savings. So, when he goes missing and foul play is suspected, there's a very good chance one of his victims sought revenge.

Miles' motives are purely altruistic. He was recently diagnosed with Huntington's disease, a degenerative and ultimately fatal illness. There's a 50% chance he passed the defective gene to any offspring; however, his only possible children would be the result of a sperm donation he made as a poor student nearly a quarter of a century ago, before DNA screening.

He faces a moral dilemma. After going through the various stages of grief brought about by his diagnosis, he has to decide whether to drop a bombshell on his progeny by revealing they may have inherited Huntington's from him, or should he allow them to go about their lives in blissful ignorance? He decides he can soften the blow by dividing his estate among them. His security director uses Miles' influence and power to obtain a list of his offspring from the fertility clinic

He sets out from Connecticut to track them down before he becomes too debilitated to travel. The first one he contacts is Chloe in nearby Rhode Island. The two form an unlikely—and occasionally strained—partnership to find her other half-siblings. They soon discover that Todd isn't the only one who has gone missing under mysterious circumstances. Two might be a coincidence, but the numbers begin to mount. The race is on: who will get to his would-be beneficiaries first?

But who is trying to eliminate Miles' children? If one of the nine knows about the list, it's possible he or she is trying to sweeten the pot by reducing the number of beneficiaries of Cookson's fortune. Yet readers know that the killers working their way through the list are taking extreme measures to remove any DNA traces associated with their victims. Are they, perhaps, agents working on behalf of Miles' older brother, an accountant in his company who probably resents the fact that he won't inherit Miles' empire?

The book features another vastly wealthy individual whose predilections will remind readers of Jeffrey Epstein. A celebrity philanthropist, he uses his knowledge and influence to control countless powerful individuals from all walks of life. However, his connection to Cookson's list of offspring is unclear.

Miles has numerous issues to deal with at the same time: his deteriorating health, an unscrupulous sister-in-law, a massive business to protect, and other intrigues. This is a fast-paced page-turner with high stakes, fascinating characters (the team of assassins have an unorthodox relationship) and a string of cliff-hangers.