Too Close to Home

By: Linwood Barclay

Narrated by: Christopher Lane

Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

“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.

Praise for Too Close to Home

“[Linwood] Barclay knows how to put ordinary people into extraordinarily dangerous circumstances. . . . Readers will zip through it with delight.” -Publishers Weekly

“[An] affecting and effective thriller.” -Wall Street Journal Review

©2008 Linwood Barclay (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Probably my favorite Barclay book

Any additional comments?

What a great story! Your regular family, going about their business until tragedy strikes in their neighborhood and their son is a suspect. The mystery is good and you follow the family in an emotional and financial race to find out what happened to the family next door. If you haven't tried Barclay, this is a great one to start with. You will be hooked.

Clash of the Classes

Well-written suspense thriller that has great characters. The characters are developed well and the narrator really brings them to life. Barclay’s focus on the struggle between our economic classes was an interesting part of the plot. He has nailed how people from different classes view and treat each other and how that effects how we’re treated in the justice system.

There were just enough twists and turns to keep the story interesting. Some were predictable, others weren’t. The narrator was above average with just a few issues with female voices.

Mission Flats

Really well written book, with an ever evolving story. Most enjoyable! Also well done narration.

twists and turns

Well put together. lots of surprises, unexpected twists. one of my favorite books. looking for another Barclay now.

Fantastic from start to finish!

Linwood Barclay is so good at diving into normal lives, and then putting those lives in weird but believable situations.

Gripping and suspensful . . . FANTASTIC!

I can't decide whether I like this one or "No Time For Goodbye" better by this author. Both are excellent and get my highest rating. Character development is so deep and complete. Narration is perfect. Some characters were so real that they had me wanting to reach through my mp3 player and strangle them! Kudos to this author for a great story and great character development.

Barclay and Lane are brilliant ...

... as author and narrator join forces to weave one of the most unusual and suspenseful murder mystery thrillers that leads us down a path and introduces us to the many quirky, dangerous and sometimes humorous characters. I have listened to many of Barclay’s audiobooks. Well worth a treasured credit. So highly recommend! An ending I never saw coming! Epic, I say. EPIC!
👏🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟✍🏻🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟✍🏻🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟👏

Not his best - just an OK experience

I've read and listened to a few of Barclay's books before, and they were better written and more enjoyable than this one. One of the things I like about his books is that his protagonists are ordinary people caught up in unfortunate circumstances, and that's true here too, but I thought that some of the characters were either particularly stupid or weak, and that bothered me. Also, this is, at the end, a story of revenge - and I don't particularly like revenge stories - they're colder than the more common and passionate motivators of action like money, lust, jealousy, or power.

The narrator was fine, but just OK - I don't think he really added much to the experience.

Loved it!

I have become a huge fan of Linwood Barclay after listening to 3 of his books so far and this one was just as good as the other 2 I have listened to. Ready to buy my next listen of Linwood Barclay.

Excellent…Again!

Once again Linwood Barclay weaves together an excellent thriller. It is creative and has creative twists and turns without being like a “typical” thriller. Narration is outstanding as well. I am never disappointed by a Linwood Barclay story!