Not a Word
A Novel
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Aug 25, 2026
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In the latest chilling thriller from New York Times bestselling author Linwood Barclay, a man’s world is upended after he stumbles upon a grisly crime scene in the family home.
Every family has secrets, but when Reece visits his parents’ house, he’s shocked to find them in bed, dead. At first glance it looks like a murder-suicide perpetrated by his father, but on closer inspection there’s clearly more to the story. For starters, inconsistencies in the crime scene suggest his dad may not have shot himself.
As Reece, shaken by his horrifying discovery, awaits questioning from the police, his phone lights up with a call. It’s the last person he ever would have expected to hear from.
Reeling from the day’s events, Reece finds himself questioning everything he thought he knew about his parents—and whether he and his own family are in danger now. While the authorities work to untangle the baffling crime scene, Reece is pulled into a web of secrets linked to the unscrupulous pharma company his father worked for years ago.
In order to protect the people he loves most, he’ll have to dig deep into his own past to understand who his parents were, what they did, and who they hurt—before he ends up paying for their sins.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The death of an Ontario pharmaceutical salesman turns out to be more complicated than it seems in this tense tale of domestic suspense from bestseller Barclay (Whistle). Newly unemployed journalist Reece Chartwell returns to his family home outside of Toronto to find two dead bodies in his parents' bedroom: one is his father, Brent Chartwell, who died holding a gun, and one is a woman who initially appears to be his mother until he learns his mother is still alive. Detective Janice McCabe is troubled by the lack of motive for the apparent murder-suicide: Brent showed no signs of violent behavior, even as his marriage to Reece's mother, Catherine, frayed. Barclay toggles between narrators and time periods as he gradually fills in the Chartwell family's dark history, beginning with Brent's decision, decades earlier, to begin working for big pharma company Wiffel-Smith and selling their highly addictive opioid, Oxy-Mirac. The plot twists come fast and furious as past and present collide, but never at the expense of readers' emotional investment—following Reece as he grapples with his family's undoing is genuinely heartbreaking. It's a winner.
