Linwood Barclay's latest novel, Whistle, is a spooky tale about an evil toy train set — read an excerpt now

CBC

19-02-2025

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Bestselling American Canadian thriller novelist Linwood Barclay is not only one of the five contenders for Canada Reads 2025 — he's also coming out with a new book of his own! Barclay's latest novel, Whistle, dips into the horror genre as a train set comes to life with sinister motives.
In Whistle, Annie, a mother, moves charming town in upstate New York with her young son. She's reeling from the sudden death of her husband in an accident and the fact that one of the children's books she authored and illustrated ignited a major scandal.
When her son, Charlie, finds an old train set in a locked shed on their property, he's thrilled, but there's something eerie about the toy. As weird things start happen in the neighbourhood, Annie can't help but feel that she's walked out of one nightmare and right into another.
"I'm a life-long model train enthusiast (also known as, in some circles, a nerd) and it struck me that toy trains never get their shot at being evil the way dolls (think Chucky) and ventriloquists' dummies (think Magic) and wind-up toy monkeys (The Monkey) do," wrote Barclay in an email to CBC Books.
"How unfair is that? But can toy trains BE scary? I don't think you'll ever look at an old Lionel or American Flyer trains set the same way again."
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Barclay is a New York Times bestselling author who has written over 20 books, including thrillers I Will Ruin You, Find You First, Broken Promise and Elevator Pitch and the middle-grade novels Escape and Chase. Many of Barclay's books have been optioned for film and television, and he wrote the screenplay for the movie Never Saw It Coming, adapted from his novel of the same name.
His books The Accident and No Time for Goodbye were made into a television series in France. Barclay lives near Toronto.
He's also championing the memoir Jennie's Boy by Wayne Johnston on Canada Reads 2025. The debates will take place from March 17-20.
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Whistle will be released on May 20, 2025. You can read an excerpt below.
Jeremy was mesmerized. He could lay here like this for hours, imagining himself in the cab of that locomotive, shoveling coal from the tender into the firebox, elbow on the window ledge, head poked out to view the track ahead, a red kerchief tied round his neck blowing in the wind, the world flying past.
It felt ... magical. As though he and the engine had somehow become one and the same, fused together. He remembered that book his mother read to him when he was two or three, about that little engine that could. Jeremy was that engine now, and he could do anything.
"Have fun," his father said, and went to the kitchen with Jeremy's mom.
He tentatively touched his finger to the track, pulling it away a millisecond before the train swept past on its latest loop. He felt a small charge, that tingle again. He knew that wasn't supposed to happen, but he definitely felt something. Maybe this train was different. Special, even –
"Oops," said Glynis, kicking over the red boxcar and sending the entire train off the tracks.
Maybe this train was different.
Jeremy was so transfixed that the derailment hit him as though he'd been awakened from a dream. He looked first at the fallen train, then slowly turned his head to look up at his sister.
She said, "You got a used second-hand gift. Somebody's old junk. My Bratz doll is new. I'm gonna eat your Cinnabon." She set her doll on the living room couch and disappeared into the kitchen.
Jeremy pondered his sister's history of villainy as he looked at the devastation she had wrought, this scale train wreck. Telling him the truth about Santa and the Easter Bunny. The time she put rabbit turds in his ice cream. Stuffed a dead toad into the toe of his runners. Told everyone at school he'd wet the bed. That time she stole three dollars from their mother's purse and, when it looked as though she might be found out, slipped the bills under Jeremy's pillow. Their mother found them when she was changing the sheets. Jeremy's protestations of innocence were to no avail.
Glynis was a very, very bad sister.
She was his tormentor. He was her victim. It had always been this way. He'd considered retaliation before but anything he attempted would bring serious blowback from his parents. He couldn't just hit her or pull her hair or put a snake in her underwear drawer. He wished he were more creative, that he could find a way to teach her a lesson without anyone tracing it back to him.
She was his tormentor. He was her victim.
Then he rolled over and eyed the Bratz doll Glynis had left sitting on the couch, staring into the room with its dead eyes. And there, on the floor, discarded strands of green ribbon that had secured some of the now unwrapped presents.
An idea was forming.
One day, his father had shared some old tapes of cartoons he'd loved as a kid. One was about a dumb Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman named Dudley Do-Right who was forever saving a girlfriend when she got tied to the railroad tracks by the nasty Snidely Whiplash.
Jeremy took the Bratz doll from the couch. Placed it across the track and secured it with the green ribbon. Then he put the locomotive and cars back onto the track.
See how Glynis liked it when her new toy got run over by his used t rain.
He cranked the throttle so hard the engine's wheels spun as they sought purchase on the track. Only half a loop to go to make contact. There was no Dudley Do-Right coming to rescue Glynis's Christmas present.
For a second there, as Jeremy looked into the face of the doll, he thought he saw the face of his sister.
That was not possible, of course. He blinked, and the doll went back to being a doll.
He blinked, and the doll went back to being a doll.
Chuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuff
Jeremy hit the whistle button.
Woo-woo!
Rounding the turn. Almost there. The moment of impact a millisecond away.
Chuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuf.
And then whomp.
What wonderful chaos. The doll was catapulted across the room, the flimsy ribbon cut by the loco's wheels before the engine bounced off the track and landed on its side, taking the attached cars with it. It was, Jeremy thought, an epic derailment as good as any he had ever seen in a movie.
And then, from the kitchen, the sound of something shattering.
Followed by a bone-chilling scream.
Jeremy sprung to his feet and went to the kitchen doorway to investigate.
His mother, father and sister were crowded around the sink, Glynis in the middle, holding her hand over some dishes that had been left there to soak.
On the floor by their feet, the shattered remains of a glass.
Blood was dripping furiously from Glynis' hand.
Blood was dripping furiously from Glynis' hand.
"My God!" Jeremy's mother shrieked. "Call an ambulance!"
Jeremy's father said there was no time for that, he would wrap the detached finger in a cloth with ice cubes around it and drive Glynis to the hospital and maybe they could reattach it and how in the hell did this happen anyway and then Jeremy's parents were yelling at each other while Glynis continued to wail.
Jeremy went back into the living room.
He found the Bratz doll. The right hand was missing, as if neatly cut off with a pair of shears. After a brief search, he found the hand between two of the metal ties that supported the train. He tucked the tiny hand deep into the pocket of his jeans.
Once the locomotive and cars were back on the track, Jeremy set the throttle to a nice, steady speed, got on the floor again, propped up on his elbows, head resting in his hands, and watched the train go round and round and round and round.