3 days ago
A nod to Edgar Allen Poe in the best Thrillers out now: We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough, The First Gentleman by Bill Clinton and James Patterson, Whistle by Linwood Barclay
We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough (Orion £22, 336pp)
We Live Here Now is available now from the Mail Bookshop
Larkin Lodge on the edge of Dartmoor should have been Freddie and Emily's dream home, but it has become a nightmare. She has just recovered from a life-threatening coma after falling from a cliff on a hiking holiday with her husband, and both think a fresh start would be the perfect cure.
But the new house seems determined to terrify Emily before she can even settle in. Windows and doors open and shut without reason or warning, as she fears she is going mad in the wake of her coma.
With a nod to Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven, the bird sits on the tree outside watching everything. Tantalising and laced with menace, this is magnificent thriller writing from an expert.
The First Gentleman by Bill Clinton and James Patterson (Century £22, 480pp)
This third collaboration between the former US president and one of the world's best-selling writers is even better, and more political, than its predecessors.
It's a runaway train of a story where the husband of the first female US president is suspected of murder as a younger man. At the time, he was still a professional American football player and having an affair with a cheerleader – who disappeared.
Two investigative reporters are preparing a bombshell book on the mystery, but there are shadowy forces at work. Told with Patterson's familiar gusto, it never lets up for a moment, and adds a delicate human dimension to this female president struggling with a string of personal dilemmas. The parallels with Mrs Clinton are too clear to be missed, but it is a gripping tale that leaps off the page.
Whistle by Linwood Barclay (HQ £20, 432pp)
Original fictional villains are to be treasured, and there is certainly one in the splendidly creepy Edwin Nabler – also known as Mr Choo-Choo – the seller of haunted toy trains from his store in the small US town of Lucknow.
The trains he sells appear to have a life of their own, and an evil one, as death seems to follow their every whistle.
Children's author Annie Blunt is trying to recover from a horrible year that has seen her husband's death and her books ignite a national scandal. She takes her young son Charlie to what she thinks is a charming small town in New York State, only to find terrifying toy trains with a dark mind of their own.
The gifted Barclay takes a step into Stephen King territory with this story – and does so with enormous skill.
