Linwood Barclay Books in Order

After a hit-and-run kills her husband and a scandal wrecks her career, children’s author Annie Blunt moves with her young son to a quiet upstate town. When the boy discovers an old model train set in their shed, eerie noises and terrifying visions suggest the toy carries something truly malevolent.

English teacher Richard Boyle becomes a local hero after talking a former student, wired with explosives, out of his school. The glare of attention quickly turns sour when another ex-student starts blackmailing him with shocking accusations, pulling Richard into a spiral of lawsuits, gang violence, and small-town paranoia.

Struggling novelist Jack Givins is hired by the U.S. Marshals to invent backstories for people in witness protection, only to realize one of them is his long-vanished father. As he digs, Jack uncovers missing witnesses, old mob grudges, and a plan that could use him as bait.

Six years after Andy Mason’s wife Brie vanished while he was on a fishing trip, a woman who looks just like her appears at their old address, demanding to know what happened to her house. The brief sighting upends Andy’s rebuilt life and reignites police, media, and family suspicions.

On isolated Garrett Island, residents have traded their cars for Arrivals, a fleet of fully autonomous vehicles meant to prove that driverless transport is perfectly safe. When a journalist vanishes and the cars begin to ignore commands, single mother Sandra Montrose and her kids are trapped in a deadly experiment.

Tech millionaire Miles Cookson has been diagnosed with a terminal genetic illness and learns he likely fathered several children through sperm donation. As he and one of his newfound offspring, Chloe, start searching for the others, they discover someone is eliminating his potential heirs one by one.

This satirical monologue takes aim at Ontario politics under Doug Ford, imagining a province where public services are gutted while cheap gimmicks earn applause. With dark humor and sharp one-liners, Barclay vents about cuts to schools, health care, and the environment in the voice of an exasperated citizen.

When a series of elevator crashes in Manhattan kills dozens over three terrifying days, the city grinds to a halt. As a hard-nosed journalist and two detectives dig into sabotage, they uncover political grudges, extremist threats, and a plot timed to a skyscraper’s grand opening.

Still on the run from the Institute, Jeff and spy dog Chipper try to stay one step ahead of high-tech trackers and ruthless operatives. As they search for people they can trust, the pair uncover just how far the organization will go to control its creations.

College professor Paul Davis survives a brutal attack after stumbling on a colleague dumping bodies. Months later, while struggling with trauma, he begins hearing an old typewriter clacking in the night and suspects it is linked to the murders, even as those around him fear he is losing his mind.

After a drunken joyride ends in a young woman’s death, the privileged driver escapes with a light sentence and becomes the focus of vicious public hatred. Private investigator Cal Weaver is hired to protect him, then finds himself trying to untangle revenge plots and new crimes in Promise Falls.

Twelve-year-old Jeff Conway is working at his aunt’s lakeside cabins when he crosses paths with Chipper, a cyber-enhanced dog who has just escaped a secret lab called the Institute. Together boy and dog must outrun relentless agents determined to destroy their most expensive experiment.

On May 23, Promise Falls is hit by catastrophe as hundreds fall ill from poisoned water and many die. While the town reels, Barry Duckworth hunts a serial killer targeting women, and Cal Weaver searches for who could benefit from mass murder in this finale to the Promise Falls trilogy.

In this short crime tale, a small-time crook agrees to move a shipment of cheap counterfeit jackets, expecting an easy score. When the handoff goes sideways and dangerous people take an interest, he has to improvise fast if he wants to escape with his life and maybe a little profit.

After a drive-in movie screen collapses and kills several people in Promise Falls, a victim’s daughter hires Cal Weaver to investigate a break-in at her father’s house. A hidden room, missing DVDs, and a series of linked murders draw Cal and Detective Barry Duckworth toward a dark townwide secret.

In this crossover novella, FBI agent Sean Reilly is chasing an online extortionist threatening to unleash a lethal biological agent. When the fugitive hijacks contractor Glen Garber's truck with his teenage daughter trapped inside, Reilly and the panicked father must work together to stop catastrophe.

In this Promise Falls novella, private investigator Cal Weaver is asked to look into a teen suspended for writing a violent short story. When the boy’s best friend is found murdered in a way that mirrors the fiction, Cal must untangle truth from imagination before more kids get hurt.

Jobless reporter David Harwood returns to Promise Falls and finds his cousin Marla caring for a baby she insists was left by an angel. When the child’s real mother turns up murdered, David’s attempt to help exposes buried secrets in his own family and signals that something is very wrong in town.

Seven years after surviving the events of No Time for Goodbye, Terry and Cynthia Archer are living apart and struggling with their trauma. When their teenage daughter Grace follows her boyfriend into a supposedly empty house, she stumbles into a crime that drags the whole family back into danger.

Still grieving his son’s death, private investigator Cal Weaver gives a rain-soaked teen girl a lift when she taps on his car window, saying she knew his boy. The ride leads to a missing-person case, a dead classmate, and a web of small-town corruption Cal can’t walk away from.

Map-obsessed shut-in Thomas spends his days roaming a street-view website and memorizing cities. When he spots what looks like a woman being murdered in a Manhattan window, his brother Ray reluctantly checks it out, only to trigger a deadly chain of events involving political power brokers and hired killers.

Contractor Glen Garber’s wife dies in a late-night car wreck that police blame on drunk driving. Convinced she was not a secret drinker, Glen looks into her last days and discovers a tangle of counterfeit goods, desperate neighbors, and ruthless criminals that now threaten him and his young daughter.

Keisha Ceylon makes her living pretending to be psychic, comforting families of the missing for a fee. Her latest client, Wendell Garfield, is frantic over his vanished wife, and Keisha’s invented vision rattles him badly. Soon she’s caught up in real violence and a cover-up she never saw coming.

Reporter David Harwood takes his wife and young son to an amusement park, but Jan vanishes between the gate and their car. When security footage and credit card records don’t match his story, David becomes the prime suspect and must dig into his wife’s hidden past to clear his name.

Con artist Keisha Ceylon poses as a psychic, visiting families of missing people with invented visions in exchange for cash. Her latest target, a husband whose wife has disappeared, reacts so strongly to her story that Keisha realizes she has stumbled dangerously close to the truth.

Tim Blake’s teenage daughter Sydney fails to return from her summer job at a local hotel, and the manager insists she was never on the payroll. Desperate, Tim uncovers lies in Syd’s life and threats from dangerous men, racing to find her before whoever took her silences her for good.

In the small town of Promise Falls, the Cutter family’s neighbors are gunned down in their own house. As police hunt for a motive, father Jim and his teenage son Derek realize their own secrets might connect to the murders and that the intended targets may have been next door.

Zack agrees to profile his friend Trixie, a suburban dominatrix, only to find a dead body in her basement dungeon and Trixie missing. Clearing his name pulls him into biker gangs, old murders, and a looming catastrophe, with his marriage and small town both under pressure.

At fourteen, Cynthia wakes to find her parents and brother gone without a trace. Twenty-five years later, married with a daughter, she agrees to revisit the cold case on television. Anonymous messages, eerie sightings, and fresh violence suggest someone knows exactly what happened that night.

In this Zack Walker outing, a brutal triple homicide and a mysterious neighbor with extremist views collide. Zack’s nosiness uncovers a plan for a high-casualty attack, forcing him to confront a would-be lone-wolf killer while still trying to keep his own family from falling apart.

Back in the city and working at a newspaper, Zack Walker takes a feature assignment that lands him in the middle of a violent crime ring. As threats close in on his family and his teenage kids make risky choices, Zack’s mix of bluster and bravery is tested again.

Safety-obsessed writer Zack Walker drags his family from the city to a quiet subdivision, convinced the suburbs will keep them safe. When he stumbles on a body and a shady development scheme, Zack’s meddling turns him into both a suspect and a target in this darkly comic mystery.

Barclay’s coming-of-age memoir revisits the years his family ran a cottage resort and trailer park in Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes. Between cleaning cabins, hauling fish guts, and dealing with quirky guests, he watches his parents’ marriage strain and his father’s health fail, finding humor alongside real grief.

A blend of family stories and observational humor, this book collects Barclay’s pieces about parenting, home repairs, in-laws, and the small disasters that make up ordinary life. It celebrates the fact that most households are a little bit chaotic and completely normal.

Drawing on his newspaper columns, Barclay skewers Ontario’s Common Sense Revolution with sharp political satire. In short, punchy pieces he imagines the everyday consequences of budget cuts, privatization, and tough talk, inviting readers to laugh even as they recognize real-world frustrations.

This collection of humorous essays offers a wry guide to fatherhood, from sleepless babies and school concerts to teenage attitude and household chaos. Barclay laughs at his own missteps while capturing the small panics and quiet joys of being a modern dad.