



The Farm
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3.8 • 232 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The international bestseller from the author of phenomenal Child 44 trilogy?Ķ
The Farm
If you refuse to believe me, I will no longer consider you my son.
Daniel believed that his parents were enjoying a peaceful retirement on a remote farm in Sweden. But with a single phone call, everything changes.
Your mother...she's not well, his father tells him. She's been imagining things - terrible, terrible things. She's had a psychotic breakdown, and been committed to a mental hospital.
Before Daniel can board a plane to Sweden, his mother calls: Everything that man has told you is a lie. I'm not mad... I need the police... Meet me at Heathrow.
Caught between his parents, and unsure of who to believe or trust, Daniel becomes his mother's unwilling judge and jury as she tells him an urgent tale of secrets, of lies, of a crime and a conspiracy that implicates his own father.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Tom Rob Smith’s heart-pounding psychological thriller follows a man named Daniel, who is caught between his elderly parents when they emerge from their quiet retirement in rural Sweden to fling horrific accusations at each other. Who’s telling the truth? We ripped through The Farm, scared of what we’d discover—and loving every minute of it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Smith's startlingly original new novel is told from the perspective of Daniel, a Londoner whose parents, Chris and Tilde, have retired to a farm in the south of Sweden. The story begins as Daniel receives word from his father that his mother has been hospitalized after experiencing psychotic episodes. For months, Chris says, Tilde has been "imagining things terrible, terrible things." Before Daniel can fly to Sweden to see her, his father calls again to say that Tilde has checked out of the hospital and disappeared. Soon after, she arrives at Daniel's door, emaciated and in obvious distress, claiming to have escaped from an asylum where Chris imprisoned her. In her ensuing tale, strikingly enacted by Toren, Tilde describes her nightmarish life on the farm, with Chris and a neighbor plotting against her. Langton convincingly renders Daniel with the voice of an educated, thoughtful young man, unable to decide whether his mother is telling the truth, or is delusional, as his father claims. Daniel, uncertain and perplexed, interrupts Tilde's story with questions that he hopes will bring out the truth. The conversation continues for much of the novel, with Toren contributing an unnerving, emotionally charged performance, and Langton reacting with questions that seemingly suggest an open mind on the part of Daniel, but that carry more than a hint of disbelief. Together, they transform Smith's brilliant prose into a mesmerizing two-character theatrical. A Grand Central hardcover.
Customer Reviews
The farm
I haven't read anything like this before. It slowed down in the middle for awhile but the ending was worth it. I thought I had it all figured out at one point and was completely wrong, which was nice. I recommend it.
Wow! What a great story!
This story is very well written. It grabbed me from the first few pages and I didn't let go until I reached the end! I could not put it down until the mystery was revealed. I highly recommend it even though it costs more than what I typically spend on an e-book; it's well worth the price! Now I want to read other books by this author.
Splendid
I've read several books in a similar vain as this, and believe one in particular inspired this one. However, I am not confusing "inspiration" with "imitation." For me, this stands on its own as possibly one of the most impressive examples of great storytelling I've read. Surely a movie adaptation is soon to follow?