Too Close to Home - Linwood Barclay

Okay fellow readers - learn from my mistake! I started Linwood Barclay's newly released suspense novel Too Close to Home too close to bedtime. I couldn't put it down! ( And I was very tired at work the next day.)

Seventeen year old Adam Langley and his parents are headed out on a week's vacation. Adam's best friend Derek Cutter decides to hide out in their basement until they're gone. He has plans to use the Langley house as a meeting place for him and his girlfriend Penny. He's just settled in, waiting for Penny when the Langley's SUV pulls in. He hides again. Mrs. Langley is sick and they've cancelled the holiday. While Derek is figuring out how he's going to get out and get back home, shots ring out. Someone else is in the house and has killed the entire family. And Derek's still hiding..

Okay, that was just the prologue!! And the opening line? From Derek's father Jim....

"The night they killed our neighbours we never heard a thing."

Derek does escape and runs home. From there things get crazy. Could the killings have something to do with some data Adam and Derek found on an old computer? Will the cops believe Derek's story? Does this killing have something to do with two other recent murders in town? The past has unexpectedly come back to haunt the present and Jim Cutter is determined to protect his family at all costs.

Just when you think the story is headed one way, it takes a sharp left turn and heads in a new direction. There's great foreshadowing at the end of many chapters, which kept me reading even later. Although I did figure out one thread ahead of the ending, there were many twists and turns I didn't see coming.

I discovered Barclay when I read his first novel, Bad Move, a darkly humourous mystery. Since then Barclay has just gotten better and better, heading more into suspense. If you've enjoyed Harlen Coben, you will love Linwood Barclay!