Whistle A novel

Barclay has established himself as a writer of thrillers that involve ordinary people in unusual circumstances. In I Will Ruin You (2024) a teacher is targeted by a blackmailer; in Look Both Ways (2022) an experiment in self-driving cars puts a community at risk. In his new novel, the author tries something a little different. Whistle begins in tragedy: Annie Blunt, the author of a best-selling series of children's books, loses her husband in a hit-and-run, and a young boy, attempting to emulate the actions of Annie's main character, plunges to his death. Annie takes her son, Charlie, to a rented house for some much-needed recuperation. But, after Charlie finds an old train set, strange things start to happen. Structurally, the book is quite different for Barclay: it's non-linear, beginning in the present day, with Annie and Charlie, then leaping back into the past, where a small-town police chief is investigating some mysterious goings-on, then into the present day again. As the two (seemingly) independent stories begin to link up, we see what Barclay is doing here: he's telling a full-on horror story. A spectacularly good one, too, brilliantly constructed and genuinely terrifying. His fans will thoroughly enjoy it, but this journey into horror territory could also bring him an entirely new audience.

Barclay (I Will Ruin You) delivers a harrowing supernatural thriller centered around a model train set. In 2001, seven-year-old Jeremy receives a toy engine for Christmas and ties one of his sister's dolls to the tracks. When the train strikes the doll, a glass shatters in the kitchen, severing one of his sister's fingers. Decades later, bestselling children's author Annie Blunt is haunted by the death of a six-year-old fan who was attempting to fly like one of her characters. Then her husband is killed in a hit-and-run. Grief-stricken, Annie flees Manhattan with her son and settles in the small Vermont town of Lucknow for the summer. On their first night there, Annie hears a train whistle, only to learn, the next morning, that no trains run nearby. Then two locals disappear, and one is found without his hair, teeth, and bones. Toggling between 2001 and the present day, Barclay gradually focuses in on Choo-Choo's Trains, a mysterious Lucknow novelty shop that seems to be connected to a spate of tragedies. As the horror mounts, Barclay grounds the action through the eyes of his well-developed protagonist, offering scares and pathos in equal doses. It's a top-shelf chiller. Agent: Helen Heller, Helen Heller Agency. (June)