Too Close to Home

As a latecomer to discover Linwood Barclay’s novels, my first read in 2013 was "No Time for Goodbye". WoW! I couldn't imagine anything another novel more riveting or powerful at the time. However, I started reading “Too Close to Home” and read it in two (2) days. I couldn't put it down! Thank goodness I opened the book on a weekend! WoW! In a quiet neighborhood, on an ordinary night, murder and mayhem intrude and family secrets and community secrets begin to unravel. It’s an absolutely incredible speed boat ride of suspense and chilling excitement from cover-to-cover and yet I wanted to read the novel as though on a sailboat on the calmest of waters to catch every detail of the experience so I didn’t miss a clue in the show more descriptions or dialogue, and to understand every nuance in each characterization. It was intense, intricate, and presented at a pace that was fast and furious and yet didn’t skip a beat. There are only three words to share, “Don’t miss it!”

After adding a comment to the author’s Facebook page about the incredible whirlwind I felt reading “Too Close to Home”, I learned that many of the characters will return in this year’s release of the title, “Broken Promise”. I can’t wait! show less

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 show more 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! show less

WARNING: This review contains spoilers.

****

As taglines go, the one for this book, "The night they killed our neighbours, we never heard a thing" is pretty damn good. It draws you in right away and, as you see just how they die, you wonder what they did to deserve such a fate. It also makes protagonist Jim Cutter wonder how much they really knew about their neighbours, and as the story progresses he learns even his own family harbours secrets.

This was a great book -- tense, suspenseful, peopled with vivid characters. It was also believable how Jim Cutter became involved with the case. He wasn't like your more obnoxious amateur detectives who simply keep stumbling across dead bodies in highly unrealistic circumstances. He simply acted to show more protect his family. That being said, I don't think anyone could get away with whacking someone in the head with a watering can like Jim did. Admittedly, that was totally hilarious, but not entirely realistic. Oh well, you have to have the fun in somewhere.

I did find that Jim provided a LOT of backstory, but it is actually relevant. And the really really suspenseful bits are well worth reading the backstory.

So to sum up, if you liked No Time for Goodbye, you'll like this one. Just expect "excellent" instead of "mind-blowingly awesome" (at least that's how I had to approach the book). show less

From Amazon:

In a quiet neighborhood, in the house next door, a family is brutally murdered for no apparent reason. You can’t help thinking, It could have been us. And you start to wonder: What if we’re next? Promise Falls isn't the kind of community where families are shot to death in their own homes. But how well did Jim and Ellen Cutter really know their neighbors—or the darker secrets of their small town? They don’t have to look further than their own marriage to know that things aren't always what they seem. Now the Cutters and their son, Derek, must face the unthinkable: that a murderer isn't just stalking too close to home…but is inside it already.

My Thoughts:

The thing I love about Linwood Barclay's characters is how show more real they all are. They get themselves into tight situations and in the process of trying to resolve them they just dig themselves deeper. You find yourself thinking,"This is exactly what would happen if this was me." The novel has enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing until the end. Sometimes I'm not sure where things are going to go, and this book was no exception. Definitely held my attention from the first page to the last. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because again the ending seemed a bit rushed. None the less, certainly worth while reading. show less

Teenager Derek Cutter has a plan. He’ll hide in his next door neighbour and best friend Adam Langley’s house when Adam and his parents go on holidays. Then Derek will have a venue for hooking up with his girlfriend Penny. Things go awry when the Langley family returns home only an hour after leaving but while Derek is trying to work out how to sneak out without being discovered the entire Langley family is killed by intruders. The next morning Derek’s parents, Jim and Ellen, are shocked to learn of their neighbours’ fate and Derek says nothing about what he saw or heard the previous night. However, Jim Cutter learns some things that make him wonder if the Langley family were killed mistakenly.

I read, and thoroughly enjoyed, show more Barclay’s [b:No Time for Goodbye|1225261|No Time for Goodbye|Linwood Barclay|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182031065s/1225261.jpg|2906898] earlier this year and what grabbed me most were the thoughtful depictions of a couple’s individual and joint struggles in a time of crisis for their family. In Too Close to Home the characters were not nearly as engaging. Jim Cutter, whose point of view occupies most of the book, is superficial and he didn’t seem to react authentically to much of what was going on in his life. His response to people he didn’t like (punching them) was juvenile and became dull (he did it four times that I can recall) and overall I was bored by him. I never bought Ellen’s character at all but I can’t really say why without giving away spoilers but I think she waited far too long in terms of the internal logic of the story to share her secret with her husband. The only person who I really thought was depicted well was their teenage son Derek but he wasn’t enough of a pivotal role to hold the book together for me.

I also struggled to maintain interest in the plot. It seemed to take forever to get going and, aside from a few minor surprises, was quite predictable. The killer was obvious to me at the moment of their introduction and, even though it had three twists too many, the end of the convoluted plagiarism thread was easy to forecast. There seemed to me to be too many ideas jammed into this one story and so nothing really got explored terribly deeply and the fact that one thread was a very (very) long and obvious red herring didn’t really work.

The book is not terrible. But, as is the way of things, if something grabs my heart in some way I forgive its flaws and when something doesn’t grab me I do admit to becoming overly picky. For tangible and intangible reasons this book just didn’t grab me and so I’ve undoubtedly gotten hot under the collar about things that don’t really matter. However if you haven’t tried Linwood Barclay yet I’d recommend [b:No Time for Goodbye|1225261|No Time for Goodbye|Linwood Barclay|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182031065s/1225261.jpg|2906898]. show less

Hmmmmm.....I think I should preface this review by stating that crime/thrillers are not my ''go to'' genre for books. Even when confronted with a stuck-in-the-airport-with-no-reading-material-situation, I am unlikely to purchase such a garden-variety example from the glut already drowning us. But as the September selection for my book club, my fate was fixed. Whilst I will concede that the crime/thriller choices of my book club have occasionally surprised me with a gem like ''The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'' by Stieg Larsson, they have more often than not bored me with ho-hum attempts of which ''Too Close to Home'' by Linwood Barclay is a tragic example.

Sporting a generic cover aspiring to be a B-grade horror movie poster, the book show more looked as bland as I was about to discover its innards tasted. There was a slight chance that reading the blurb might bolster my appetite, but a quick scan confirmed my suspicions that here was yet another formulaic thriller novel designed to spoon feed the masses. And the contents, you ask? Well they left me feeling nauseous.

''Too Close to Home'' is essentially a murder mystery centred around the cold-blooded execution of an entire family. Young Derek Cutter witnesses the murder and his family soon become embroiled in the quest to find the killers. The back cover blurb attempts to trick you into believing the book has more depth than my brief synopsis indicates, but the storyline and character development are as shallow as they come. The bumbling plot stumbles along through a hodge-podge of convenient coincidences, irrational character decisions and clumsily designed sub-plots designed to throw you off the scent but fail to do exactly that. Not to mention the ever-predictable last-minute twist that we all saw coming.

Let’s take a look at some specific examples. The book is set in an average town, full of average people and focuses on an average family. The key word here is average. But we are asked to believe that an average person would decide not to co-operate with police, but instead investigate the crime themselves. Who are these people? The central character hires a new employee, who he later learns is a bank robber, but still keeps him on leaving him alone with his recently traumatised son without really questioning his character. Again, who are these people? And let’s not forget the average town mayor who gets publicly drunk and vomits at the front door of a halfway house for women, has sex with an under-age hooker, and punches his employee in the eye, but always seems to win the people over and elude any questions about his leadership. Do I need to say it again? I could go on and on, but the basic point is that the characters and the storyline are totally unrealistic and we are asked to be gullible beyond all reason. As far as I’m concerned, this is a mortal wound for the book. You’ve lost me. Case closed!

I am but a small fish and history proves that my opinion is no true reflection of ''what’s hot'' on the bestseller list. Keeping with tradition ''Too Close to Home'' has enjoyed a superfluity of praise in the reading world. Not only did it win the Best Novel category at the Arthur Ellis awards (the top prize in Canada for crime fiction), but it was also a UK bestseller, at one stage selling over 45,000 copies in just one week. So it begs the question - am I missing something? Please enlighten me.

I apologise in advance to Linwood Barclay as I am sure he doesn’t deserve this treatment. His book is merely the catalyst for my rant and he is most certainly not the only offender. My quibble is with the whole damn crime/thriller leviathan. I don’t mean to sound pretentious, but when did it become OK to underestimate the average reader? And when did we, as the readers, stop fighting against it? When did we submit? show less

From Amazon:

In a quiet neighborhood, in the house next door, a family is brutally murdered for no apparent reason. You can’t help thinking, It could have been us. And you start to wonder: What if we’re next? Promise Falls isn’t the kind of community where families are shot to death in their own homes. But how well did Jim and Ellen Cutter really know their neighbors—or the darker secrets of their small town? They don’t have to look further than their own marriage to know that things aren’t always what they seem. Now the Cutters and their son, Derek, must face the unthinkable: that a murderer isn’t just stalking too close to home…but is inside it already.

My Thoughts:

This can easily be called "a can't put down" thriller show more with a mystery angle as we ponder... until the very final page.... why were the Langley's murdered? Jim Cutter is an extremely likable character as well and the book has its fair share of unlikable characters which makes it that much more enjoyable. I really loved this book for its complex plot, and its tense conclusion. If you like Harlan Coben you will diffidently want to read Linwood Barclay. show less