1--What is the title of your latest release?
WHISTLE
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Whistle is a horror/supernatural chiller that will do for toy trains what Chucky did for dolls.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Given the main character’s profession, New York City made sense as a starting place, and the other locations needed to be within driving distance.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
For sure. Annie is a very talented artist and writer. A very interesting person.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Creative, resilient, protective.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
Sometimes the story you’re writing is actually two novels in one.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Answer: Both.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Popcorn.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
There’s a big window beyond my desk, so I know FedEx is here before they ring the bell. Book posters and a framed photo of Alfred Hitchcock on the wall, toys based on TV shows from the 60s, an old Royal manual typewriter that’s just for show, and lots and lots of books on the shelves.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Stephen King.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
The Goodbye Look, by Ross Macdonald. Discovered it when I was 15, and it would shape how I’d view crime fiction in the future.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
If you’re talking about my first book, it was so long ago I hardly remember.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
I lean toward crime fiction, but it needs to be really good. That means great characters and dialogue.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Probably watch it twice a year.
15--What is your favorite season?
Spring.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
This year I bought myself a pair of socks. But it was my 70th, so I felt a need to go all out.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
The Pitt, on TV. And best book I have read so far this year is Robert Crais’ The Big Empty.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Italian.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
Walk the neighborhood, binge-watch shows, sit on the deck in the summer and read the doorstoppers I haven’t had time till then to tackle, tinker with my model railroad.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
I’m working on a book about porch pirates, those folks who steal your packages before you have a chance to bring them into the house.
A Chilling Horror Journey of a Mother and Son into a New Town, Haunted Trains, and Unsettling Nightmares—Perfect for Summer Reading
New York Times bestselling author Linwood Barclay enters new territory with a supernatural chiller in which a woman and her young son move to a small town looking for a fresh start, only to be haunted by disturbing events and strange visions when they find a mysterious train set in a storage shed.
Evil has a one track mind....
Annie Blunt has had an unimaginably terrible year. First, her husband was killed in a tragic hit-and-run accident, then one of the children’s books she’s built her writing and illustrating career on ignited a major scandal. Desperate for a fresh start, she moves with her son Charlie to a charming small town in upstate New York where they can begin to heal.
But Annie’s year is about to get worse.
Bored and lonely in their isolated new surroundings, Charlie is thrilled when he finds a forgotten train set in a locked shed on their property. Annie is glad to see Charlie happy, but there’s something unsettling about his new toy. Strange sounds wake Annie in the night—she could swear she hears a train, but there isn’t an active track for miles—and bizarre things begin happening in the neighborhood. Worse, Annie can’t seem to stop drawing a disturbing new character that has no place in a children’s book.
Grief can do strange things to the mind, but Annie is beginning to think she’s walked out of one nightmare straight into another, only this one is far more terrifying…
Horror | Paranormal Mystery [William Morrow Paperbacks, On Sale: June 10, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9780063436039 / eISBN: 9780063436022]
Linwood Barclay is a staff columnist for the Toronto Star, where he has worked since 1981. He's the author of the Zack Walker novels Bad Move, Bad Guys, Lone Wolf and Stone Rain, and the upcoming standalone thriller No Time For Goodbye. He's also the author of Last Resort, a memoir, that was shortlisted in 2001 for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in Canada.
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