In his latest novel, Canadian author Linwood Barclay shows he knows the power of an explosive opening. Dropping us straight in to the action, Reece Chartwell is being interviewed by Yorkton Hill Police Detective Janice McCabe after he discovered his parents, Brent and Catherine, dead in their bed. It looks like a murder-suicide at first glance. Catherine has been shot in the head, the gun lying on the floor near Brent’s cold hand. It’s only after Reece leaves his parent’s home that he gets a call from Catherine asking where his dad is!
It’s worth taking a deeper look at this first chapter, not just because it’s so good, but also because it’s representative of the novel as a whole. So, in the first chapter alone, Barclay introduces us to his main protagonists (Reece and McCabe), establishes an antagonistic relationship between them as the detective (suspicious, thorough, unceasing) finds Reece’s (thoughtful, hesitant) answers unsatisfying. This conflict is something they’ll necessarily have to overcome as the story moves forwards.
Immediately, the author has focused our attention with the high-stakes scene of a police interrogation, and then with perfect timing, right at the end of the chapter, just as we are assimilating everything that’s already happened, he delivers an excellent twist. The setting of a family home, the scene of a grieving son reliving the deaths of his parents, and the killer twist all mark the novel as belonging to the domestic noir subgenre.
Barclay has been a successful thriller writer for a long time, perhaps more so in North America than in the United Kingdom, and with writing as good as this, it’s easy to see why. Even if commercial, high-concept thrillers aren’t your thing, it’s impossible not to be impressed with the craft on display. It’s a level, more or less, that Barclay maintains throughout.
The revelation that Catherine Chartwell is not dead after all changes everything for our protagonists. For McCabe it means any initial thoughts of closing an open and shut case will have to be put aside. Who is the second victim if it isn’t Catherine? What was her relationship to Brent? Why did Reece lie to her that his mother had been murdered?
For Reece the questions are more personal. Who is the stranger he found in bed with his father? If Brent was having an affair, how long had it been going on? Did Catherine know? Was she having an affair too? His whole life is being turned upside down and Reece begins to question everything he thought he knew. In separate ways, both Reece and McCabe begin their own contrasting investigations into the Chartwell family’s past. The revelations contained within form the basis of a compelling drama, set in a fictional neighbourhood in a major Canadian city.
Sometimes it’s expeditious for an author to have their character make bad choices in order to help tell the story, or have events occur that are just that fraction too coincidental to be really believable. There are more than a couple of those in Not a Word, but for the most part, Barclay gets away with it better than most. His writing is so confident and propulsive that I found myself pulled along in its wake. Barclay creates a villain who is notable for their ruthlessness and almost emotional sadism, and my biggest disappointment was that at the end I felt the author backtracked somewhat on that in an attempt to create some sympathy for them. A relatively minor quibble in an otherwise very enjoyable novel.
HQ (UK) / William Morrow (US)
Print/Kindle/iBook
£11.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
