Book reviews: second part of bestselling author Linwood Barclay’s Promise Falls trilogy
Plus: Jonathan Safran Foer’s excellent debut novel and journalist John Sweeney’s elephant fiction arrive in audiobook format
Far From True
by Linwood Barclay
Orion Publishing (e-book)
3/5 stars
Linwood Barclay is best known for No Time for Goodbye, which set out a stall for paranoia, spooky premises and titles of no more than three or four words. Far From True is part two of a trilogy that is set in the small town of Promise Falls and began with Broken Promise. That Gone Girl-ish premise had journalist (David Harwood) home after losing his job and attempting to defend his cousin Marla from accusations of murder. Like Twin Peaks, another touchstone, that original sin is merely the excuse for introducing several others – from a murderer on the loose to a gothic case of squirrel-cide. Far From True shifts Harwood from centre stage, which is shared by Cal Weaver, a private eye hired to investigate the deaths of four people at a drive-in movie theatre. Weaver quickly realises that the fatal explosion was deliberate and that the victims were connected in the oddest of ways. In truth, it is best to start with Broken Promise. Although Barclay offers plentiful backstory about his protagonists (some of which he covered in part one), the new focus leaves large holes. Some of these presumably will be filled in part three, The Twenty-Three, a nastily significant number in Promise Falls.