Linwood Barclay Books In Order

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Too Close to Home (2008)
  2. Fear the Worst (2009)
  3. Never Look Away (2010)
  4. Trust Your Eyes (2011)
  5. The Accident (2011)
  6. A Tap on the Window (2013)
  7. A Noise Downstairs (2018)
  8. Elevator Pitch (2019)
  9. Find You First (2021)

Promise Falls Books In Publication Order

  1. Broken Promise (2015)
  2. Final Assignment (2015)
  3. Far From True (2016)
  4. The Twenty-Three (2016)
  5. Parting Shot (2017)

No Time For Goodbye Books In Publication Order

  1. No Time for Goodbye (2007)
  2. No Safe House (2014)

Zack Walker Books In Publication Order

  1. Bad Move (2004)
  2. Bad Guys (2005)
  3. Lone Wolf (2006)
  4. Stone Rain / Bad News (2007)

Keisha Ceylon Books In Publication Order

  1. Never Saw It Coming (2010)
  2. Clouded Vision (2010)

Chase Books In Publication Order

  1. Chase (2017)
  2. Escape (2018)

Short Stories/Novellas In Publication Order

  1. Pit Stop: Sean Reilly vs. Glen Garber (With: Raymond Khoury) (2015)
  2. Jacket Man (2016)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Father Knows Zilch: A Guide for Dumbfounded Dads (1996)
  2. Mike Harris Made Me Eat My Dog (1998)
  3. This House is Nuts: Surviving the Absurdities of Everyday Life (1998)
  4. Last Resort : A Memoir (2000)

Raymond Khoury Short Stories/Novellas In Publication Order

  1. Pit Stop: Sean Reilly vs. Glen Garber (With: Raymond Khoury) (2015)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. FaceOff (2014)
  2. Nothing Good Happens After Midnight (2020)

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Promise Falls Book Covers

No Time For Goodbye Book Covers

Zack Walker Book Covers

Keisha Ceylon Book Covers

Chase Book Covers

Short Stories/Novellas Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Raymond Khoury Short Stories/Novellas Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Linwood Barclay Books Overview

Too Close to Home

The night they killed our neighbors, we never heard a thing. In a quiet suburban neighborhood, in a house only one door away, a family is brutally murdered for no apparent reason. And you think to yourself: It could have been us. And you start to wonder: What if we re next?Linwood Barclay, critically acclaimed author of No Time for Goodbye, brings terror closer than ever before in a thriller where murder strikes in the place we feel safest of all. Promise Falls isn t the kind of community where a family is shot to death in their own home. But that is exactly what happened to the Langleys one sweltering summer night, and no one in this small upstate New York town is more shocked than their next door neighbors, Jim and Ellen Cutter. They visited for the occasional barbecue and their son, Derek, was friends with the Langleys boy, Adam; but how well did they really know their neighbors? That’s the question Jim Cutter is asking, and the answers he s getting aren t reassuring. Albert Langley was a successful, well respected criminal lawyer, but was he so good at getting criminals off that he was the victim of revenge a debt his innocent family also paid in blood? From the town s criminally corrupt mayor to the tragic suicide of a talented student a decade before, Promise Falls has more than its share of secrets. And Jim Cutter, failed artist turned landscaper, need look no further than his own home and his wife Ellen s past to know that things aren t always what they seem. But not even Jim and Ellen are ready to know that their son was in the Langley house the night the family was murdered. Suddenly the Cutters must face the unthinkable: that a murderer isn t just stalking Too Close to Home but is inside it already. For the Langleys weren t the first to die and they won t be the last.

Fear the Worst

Your daughter doesn t come home one night from her summer job.
You go there looking for her. No one’s seen here. But it s worse than that.
No one s ever seen her. So where has she been going every day? And where is she now?

In Linwood Barclay s riveting new thriller, an ordinary man s desperate search for his daughter leads him into a dark world of corruption, exploitation, and murder. Tim Blake is about to learn that the people you think you know best are the ones harboring the biggest secrets.

Tim is an average guy. He sells cars. He has an ex wife. She s moved in with a man whose moody son spends more time online than he should. His girlfriend is turning out to be a bit of a flake. It s not a life without hassles, but nothing will prepare Tim for the nightmare that s about to begin.

Sydney vanishes into thin air. At the hotel where she supposedly worked, no one has ever heard of her. Even her closest friends seem to be at a loss. Now, as the days pass without word, Tim must face the fact that not only is Sydney missing, but that the daughter he s loved and thought he knew is a virtual stranger.

As he retraces Sydney s steps, Tim discovers that the suburban Connecticut town he always thought of as idyllic is anything but. What he doesn t know is that his every move is being watched. There are others who want to find Syd as much as Tim does.

But they re not planning a Welcome Home party.

The closer Tim comes to the truth, the closer he comes to every parent s worst nightmare and the kind of evil only a parent s love has a chance in hell of stopping.

Never Look Away

‘Where has Linwood Barclay been all my life? His is the best thriller I’ve read in five years. Once I was 30 pages in, I literally couldn’t put it down. The writing is crisp; the twists are jolting and completely unexpected. Think ‘Rebecca’ and you’ll be in the right neighborhood.’ Stephen KingIn this tense, mesmerizing thriller by Linwood Barclay, critically acclaimed author of Fear the Worst and Too Close to Home, a man’s life unravels around him when the unthinkable strikes. A warm summer Saturday. An amuseme*nt park. David Harwood is glad to be spending some quality time with his wife, Jan, and their four year old son. But what begins as a pleasant family outing turns into a nightmare after an inexplicable disappearance. A frantic search only leads to an even more shocking and harrowing turn of events. Until this terrifying moment, David Harwood is just a small town reporter in need of a break. His paper, the Promise Falls Standard, is struggling to survive. Then he gets a lead that just might be the answer to his prayers: a potential scandal involving a controversial development project for the outskirts of this picturesque upstate New York town. It s a hot button issue that will surely sell papers and help reverse the Standard s fortunes, but strangely, David s editors keep shooting it down. Why? That s a question no longer at the top of David s list. Now the only thing he cares about is restoring his family. Desperate for any clue, David dives into his own investigation and into a web of lies and deceit. For with every new piece of evidence he uncovers, David finds more questions and moves ever closer to a shattering truth.

The Accident

In this mesmerizing thriller by acclaimed author Linwood Barclay, a typical American community descends into darkness, as an ordinary man is swept into one of the most violent mysteries of modern life. It’s the new normal at the Garber household in Connecticut: Glen, a contractor, has seen his business shaken by the housing crisis, and now his wife, Sheila, is taking a business course at night to increase her chances of landing a good paying job. But she should have been home by now. Waiting for Sheila s return, with their eight year old daughter sleeping soundly, Glen soon finds his worst fears confirmed: Sheila and two others have been killed in a car accident. Adding to the tragedy, the police claim Sheila was responsible. Glen knows it s impossible; he knew his wife and she would never do such a thing. When he investigates, Glen begins to uncover layers of lawlessness beneath the placid surface of their suburb, secret after dangerous secret behind the closed doors. Propelled into a vortex of corruption and illegal activity, pursued by mysterious killers, and confronted by threats from neighbors he thought he knew, Glen must take his own desperate measures and go to terrifying new places in himself to avenge his wife and protect his child. Bold and timely, with the shocking twists and startling insights that have become trademarks of this new master of domestic suspense, The Accident is a riveting triumph, a book that moves at a breathless pace to a climax no one will see coming.

No Time for Goodbye

The house was deathly quiet. That was the first sign that something was terribly wrong. Fourteen year old Cynthia Bigge woke that morning to find herself alone. Her family mother, father, and brother had vanished without a word, without a note, without a trace. Twenty five years later, Cynthia is still looking for answers. Now she is about to learn the devastating truth. From critically acclaimed author Linwood Barclay comes a new suspense thriller that strikes to the core of our most primal fear. What if you woke one day to find your entire life had changed? If everyone you loved had disappeared overnight without so much as a chance to ask why?Cynthia and Terry Archer still live in Milford, Connecticut, not far from the old Bigge house on Hickory Street. With a solid marriage and a young daughter, the Archers seem on track for a successful future. But the questions raised by Cynthia’s past still haunt her, and her obsession to find the answers threatens to destroy everything they ve worked for. For Cynthia, there can be no closure until she finds out why her family disappeared and how they could have left her behind. Terry thinks the segment on the popular TV crime stopper program Deadline is a mistake. But his wife hopes that someone watching will have a lead to her missing family. Sure enough, it s Cynthia who spots the strange car cruising the neighborhood, hears the untraceable phone calls, and discovers the ominous gifts. And as Cynthia s nerves begin to unravel, no one s innocence is guaranteed, not even her own. By the time the first body is found, it s clear that her past is more of a mystery than she ever imagined or may ever survive. Someone has returned to this Connecticut town to finish what was started twenty five years ago. And by the time Terry and Cynthia discover the killer s shocking identity, it will be too late even for goodbye.

Bad Move

In the too quiet town of Oakwood, only the lucky die of boredom and new homeowner Zack Walker isn t feeling lucky. Whoever said the burbs were boring will think twice after reading Linwood Barclay’s hilarious debut mystery, in which Dad learns the hard way that he doesn t always know best. Zack wouldn t blame you for thinking he s safety obsessed. True, he masterminded a plot to trade his family s exciting city lifestyle for one of suburban tranquillity. True, even after this strategic move, Zack still has issues with family members who forget their keys in the front door, leave their cars unlocked, or park their backpacks at the top of the stairs where you could kill yourself tripping over them. Just ask his wife, Sarah, or his teenage kids, Paul and Angie, who endure their share of lectures. Zack knows that he needs to chill out and assume the best for once but we know what happens to those who assume. When Zack realizes their two faced developer sent a petty thief to fix their leaky shower, he starts fighting hard to ignore the fact that Oakwood isn t the crime free paradise he was hoping for. But his brief state of denial comes to an abrupt end when, during a walk by the creek, he stumbles across a dead body. Even more shocking, Zack actually knows who the victim is and who might want him dead. With a killer roaming around their neighborhood and Zack s overactive imagination in overdrive, he s sure things can t get any worse. But then another local is murdered and Zack s paranoid tendencies get him implicated in the crime. While his wife is trying to remember why she married him in the first place, and his kids are considering whether it s time to have him committed, Zack decides there s only one thing he can do. To protect his family and avoid being busted for a crime he didn t commit he s going to have to override his safety first instincts, tap into his delusions of machismo, and track down the killer himself. From the Hardcover edition.

Bad Guys

Fans of the crime caper will rejoice that Linwood Barclay is back with the hilarious follow up to his riotously funny and irreverent debut, in which paranoid pop Zack Walker plotted to transplant his city savvy wife and two teenage kids to the tranquillity of the burbs where planned communities prevail and fathers rest easy. Well, not quite and now the Walkers have moved home only to find themselves living in the precarious crosshairs of urban sprawl once again, and Zack can t help but be worried really worried that just around the corner lurks the presence of some really Bad Guys. Zack is back, and much to his family’s relief, the work at home science fiction writer has left the house to take a job as a features writer for the city paper. But now that Zack s incessant plotting can no longer be hatched from the comforts of his own home, he must be ever more vigilant to outwit the evil at large, whether in the suburbs, the city, or his own imagination. Zack is ready or so he thinks. While researching his first feature article, Zack stumbles upon a real life crime scene, but what seems like an ordinary hit and run may actually be a homicide linked to a gang that s been burglarizing Crandall s high end shops. Suddenly Zack finds himself at the center of a violent crime wave and destined for a confrontation with Barbie Bullock, an unsettling figure infamous in the crime syndicate for his ruthless business tactics and peculiar proclivity for collecting dolls. And all is not quiet on the home front either. Zack s protective instincts launch into overdrive when he discovers that his daughter s rejected suitor has been tracing her every step and may harbor a much more ominous motivation than winning a Saturday night date. Nor does his son s strange behavior and recent friendship with a creepy computer recluse inspire joy in a father s heart. As worlds begin to collide and boundaries between family and foe blur, Zack goes on the attack, and heaven help the Bad Guys when this resourceful father comes to make good on a deal gone bad.

Lone Wolf

Newspaper writer, family man, and reluctant hero Zack Walker has stumbled onto some dicey stories before, but nothing like what he’s about to uncover when a mutilated corpse is found at his father s lakeside fishing camp. As always, Zack fears the worst. And this time, his paranoid worldview is dead on.

While the locals attribute the death to a bear attack, Zack suspects something far more ominous a predator whose weapons include arson, assault, and enough wacko beliefs to fuel a dozen hate groups. Then another body is discovered and a large supply of fertilizer goes missing, evoking memories of the Oklahoma City bombing. But it s when he learns that his neighbor is a classic Lone Wolf FBI parlance for a solo fanatic hell bent on using high body counts to make political statements that Zack realizes the idyllic town of his childhood is under siege. The fuse is lit to a catastrophe of unimaginable terror. And with time running out, Zack must face off with a madman.

Stone Rain / Bad News

Metropolitan newspaper writer Zack Walker has a knack for stumbling onto deadly stories. But it’s one that his good friend Trixie Snelling doesn t want told that s about to unleash a storm of trouble. As a professional dominatrix in the suburbs, Trixie has her share of secrets, but Zack has no idea what she s really hiding when a local newspaperman threatens to do an expos on her not until Zack finds a dead body strapped to the bondage cross in her baseme*nt dungeon.

Now Zack is implicated in a murder, Trixie is missing, and everything he thought he knew about his friend, his town, even his own marriage, reveals a darker side. Zack s twisted trail to the truth will lead to a long unsolved triple homicide, bikers, drug wars, and a stone cold killer hell bent on revenge. It s a story that s already cost him his job and possibly his wife, and, if Zack s not very lucky, it will cost him his life.

Clouded Vision

Keisha Ceylon is a psychic. At least, that’s what she pas*ses herself off as. The truth is, Keisha’s real powers have more to do with separating troubled families from their money than actually seeing into the netherworld. Keisha watches the news for stories of missing family members. She gives it a few days, then moves in, tells these families she’s had a vision, that she may have some clue to where these missing people are. And by the way, she charges for this service, and likes to see the money up front. Keisha’s latest mark is a man whose wife disappeared a week ago. She’s seen him on TV, pleading for his wife to come home, or, if she’s been abducted, pleading with whoever took her to let her go. Keisha knows a payoff when she sees one. So she pays a visit to our troubled husband, tells him her vision. Trouble is, her vision just happens to be close enough to the truth that it leaves this man rattled. And it may very well leave Keisha dead.

Mike Harris Made Me Eat My Dog

Three years into Ontario’s Common Sense Revolution, hospitals and schools are closing by the hundreds; thousands of nurses and teachers and other workers are jobless; schools are in chaos; pregnant welfare mothers have lost their nutrition allowance because the Premier thinks they’ll spend it on beer; Toronto the megacity is collapsing under the weight of its own amalgamated administration; the Premier’s last cultural experience was Mr. Silly; the rich are getting larger tax cuts while the province won’t spring to bury the homeless; welfare recipients deserve to be fingerprinted, but motorists running red lights shouldn’t have their pictures taken because it would violate their privacy. What can you do but laugh? That’s the approach taken by Linwood Barclay, who’s been skewering the current occupiers of Queen’s Park in his Toronto Star column since they took office. Mike Harris Made Me Eat My Dog comes just in time; it’s an informed and viciously satirical look at the Ontario Tories, who’ve polarized public opinion unlike any other government in the province’s history. Chapters include a look at the so called Whiz Kids advising the Premier: There’s Tiffany, age 6, whose political credo is Mine! Mine!”’ Find out what happens at a meeting of the Tory cabinet’s book club. Learn how the homeless can help you get a big screen tv, and discover 10 fun things to do, in your final moments, while waiting in the emergency room.

Last Resort : A Memoir

In 1966, when his parents abandoned their suburban Toronto split level to buy Green Acres, a cottage and trailer resort in Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes region, eleven year old Linwood Barclay s life took an unexpected turn. No more rec room train sets. Now Linwood was hauling fish guts to the woods for burial, answering distress calls from women in the ladies room who found themselves without toilet paper, and standing in leaky chest waders pounding dock posts into the lake bottom. The chores weren t so bad, especially when he could help his father, who had been a commercial artist before he bought his way into the tourist business. And in other ways, it was a good life for a boy. He had wheels a John Deere riding mower, a small aluminum boat with a 9.5 horsepower outboard and only one speed fast, and Chipper, a dog that chased boats the way other dogs chase cars, sometimes with catastrophically comic results. Linwood also had access to The Chart, a cottage reservations list that was, for him, a guide to the arrivals and departures of the guests teenaged daughters. Summer romances could be as intense as they were heartbreaking. When he was sixteen, an unexpected tragedy changed Linwood s life again. His older brother, Rett, helped out as best he could, but he was wrestling with demons of his own often withdrawing into his own complicated inner world. Linwood found an extended family in the resort s guests, who lent him a hand, and shaped him into the man he would become. His mother s eccentricities she quit driving to shame the police for having given her a ticket made Linwood s new responsibilities heavier than they might otherwise have been. When he finally decided to move away from Green Acres to make a separate life, she made it as difficult as possible for him. In the midst of all this, Linwood found his vocation, and mentors, too, in Margaret Laurence, and in Kenneth Millar, who under the pen name Ross MacDonald wrote a highly successful series of detective novels. In this memoir, Linwood Barclay looks back with humour, sadness, and affection on the singular circumstances of his coming of age.

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