Publication Date: May 20, 2025
“Terrific.”— Stephen King on Whistle
New York Times bestselling author Linwood Barclay enters new territory with a supernatural chiller in which a woman and her young son move to a small town looking for a fresh start, only to be haunted by disturbing events and strange visions when they find a mysterious train set in a storage shed.
Evil has a one track mind….
Annie Blunt has had an unimaginably terrible year. First, her husband was killed in a tragic hit-and-run accident, then one of the children’s books she’s built her writing and illustrating career on ignited a major scandal. Desperate for a fresh start, she moves with her son Charlie to a charming small town in upstate New York where they can begin to heal.
But Annie’s year is about to get worse.
Bored and lonely in their isolated new surroundings, Charlie is thrilled when he finds a forgotten train set in a locked shed on their property. Annie is glad to see Charlie happy, but there’s something unsettling about his new toy. Strange sounds wake Annie in the night—she could swear she hears a train, but there isn’t an active track for miles—and bizarre things begin happening in the neighborhood. Worse, Annie can’t seem to stop drawing a disturbing new character that has no place in a children’s book.
Grief can do strange things to the mind, but Annie is beginning to think she’s walked out of one nightmare straight into another, only this one is far more terrifying…
Not since Stephen King’s Christine has an inanimate object created the kind of fear that takes hold in Linwood Barclay’s latest paranormal suspense.
Whistle tells the story of train sets bent on evil destruction. Children and adults alike are fascinated by the toy trains that look like real ones, chugging around a track complete with smoke and a whistle.
However, there’s something sinister about these trains. When Annie’s son finds a train set in storage at their rental house, it unleashes a nightmare for a woman already dealing with grief and regret over the loss of her husband and career woes.
Meanwhile, Police Chief Harry Cook suspects something strange is happening in his town of Lucknow. Suspicious disappearances, dead bodies, missing parts, and the sudden appearance of a train shop are only a few of the surprises added by the author.
Whistle excels in building suspense courtesy of a train set designed to wreak havoc.
Linwood Barclay is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous previous novels and two thrillers for children. His books have been translated into more than two dozen languages. He wrote the screenplay adaptation for his novel Never Saw It Coming and his books The Accident and No Time for Goodbye have been made into TV series in France. No Time for Goodbye was a global bestseller. A native of Connecticut, he now lives in Toronto with his wife, Neetha.
