Linwood Barclay

Linwood Barclay is the #1 internationally bestselling author of thirteen novels, including Trust Your Eyes, A Tap on the Window, No Time for Goodbye and that novel's followup, No Safe House.

His new thriller is Broken Promise, the first of three linked novels about his fictional upstate New York town, Promise Falls.

A couple of weeks ago I asked Barclay about what he was reading. His reply:

I’ve just finished Nick’s Trip, one of George Pelecanos’ earlier novels. I’m a big Pelecanos fan, particularly his recent books about Spero Lucas, but I realized Nick’s Trip was one that I’d missed. It’s a good, solid read. One of the early chapters, about a wild, reckless, drug- and alcohol-induced trip Nick takes with a friend, is practically a novel in itself.

Now I can dive back into the just-released Meanwhile There Are Letters, a fascinating book of correspondence between writers Ross Macdonald and Eudora Welty, edited by Tom Nolan and Suzanne Marrs. No writer had a greater impact on me than Macdonald, whose Lew Archer novels I discovered when I was in my teens. I myself have a number of letters from Macdonald, with whom I corresponded in my twenties. The letters between him and Welty — they had a tremendous admiration of each other’s work — sheds light on their creative process, but more than that, it’s really a kind of love affair. Although they only met in person a couple of times, the connection they make with one another through their letters is something very special.

As always, there is a stack of books waiting for me on the bedside table. I’m slowly working my way through Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, which I haven’t read since I was in my teens. There’s a collection of Elmore Leonard short stories, the latest Walter Mosley, Lisa Gardner’s Crash & Burn, and a reissued Travis McGee novel by John D. MacDonald that I am throwing into my bag when I leave for my U.S. book tour.

So many books, so little time.

Visit Linwood Barclay's website.

--Marshal Zeringue