Book Club Discussion Guide

Transcription

1 About the Author Book Title: The Accident 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. This summer, his thriller Broken Promise, the first of three linked novels about his fictional upstate New York town Promise Falls, will be released. Book two will come nine months later, and another nine months after that, the conclusion will be released. Over the years, several of Barclay's novels have been optioned for film and television. Most recently, No Time for Goodbye has been optioned for television in France, and in 2012, Trust Your Eyes was the object of a film rights bidding war between Universal and Warner Bros.

2 After spending his formative years helping run a cottage resort and trailer park after his father died when he was 16, Barclay got his first newspaper job at the Peterborough Examiner, a small Ontario daily. In 1981, he joined the Toronto Star, Canada s largest circulation newspaper. He held such positions as assistant city editor, chief copy editor, news editor, and Life section editor, before becoming the paper s humour columnist in He was one of the paper s most popular columnists before retiring from the position in 2008 to work exclusively on books. In 2004, he launched his mystery series about an anxiety-ridden, knowit-all, pain-in-the-butt father by the name of Zack Walker. Bad Move, the first book, was followed by three more Zack Walker thrillers: Bad Guys, Lone Wolf, and Stone Rain. His first standalone thriller, No Time for Goodbye, was published in 2007 to critical acclaim and great international success. The following year, it was a Richard and Judy Summer Read selection in the UK, and did seven straight weeks at #1 on the UK bestseller list. The book has been sold around the world and been translated into nearly thirty languages. Barclay was born in the United States but moved to Canada just before turning four years old when his father, a commercial artist whose illustrations of cars appeared in Life, Look and Saturday Evening Post (before photography took over), accepted a position with an advertising agency north of the border. Barclay, who graduated with an English literature degree from Trent University, in Peterborough, Ontario, was fortunate to have some very fine mentors; in particular, the celebrated Canadian author Margaret Laurence, whom Linwood first met when she served as writer-inresidence at Trent, and Kenneth Millar, who, under the name Ross

3 Macdonald, wrote the acclaimed series of mystery novels featuring detective Lew Archer. It was at Trent that he met Neetha, the woman who would become his wife. They have two children, Spencer and Paige.

4 About the Book Book Title: The Accident It s the new normal at the Garber household in Connecticut: Glen, a contractor, has seen his business shaken by the housing crisis, and now his wife, Sheila, is taking a business course at night to increase her chances of landing a good-paying job. But she should have been home by now. Waiting for Sheila s return, with their eight-year-old daughter sleeping soundly, Glen soon finds his worst fears confirmed: Sheila and two others have been killed in a car accident. Adding to the tragedy, the police claim Sheila was responsible. Glen knows it s impossible; he knew his wife and she would never do such a thing. When he investigates, Glen begins to uncover layers of lawlessness beneath the placid surface of their suburb, secret after dangerous secret behind the closed doors. Propelled into a vortex of corruption and illegal activity, pursued by mysterious killers, and confronted by threats from neighbors he thought he knew, Glen must take his own desperate measures and go to terrifying new places in himself to avenge his wife and protect his child. Bold and timely, with the shocking twists and startling insights that have become trademarks of this new master of domestic suspense, The Accident is a riveting triumph, a book that moves at a breathless pace to a climax no one will see coming.

5 Discussion Questions Book Title: The Accident 1. Toss one question at a time out to the group. Use our LitLovers Resources below to help you with specific questions. 2. Select a number of questions, write each on an index card, and pass them out. Each member (or team of 2 or 3) takes a card and answers the question. 3. Use a prompt (prop) related to the story. It can help stimulate members' thinking about some aspect of the story. It's adult show & tell. (Think maps, photographs, paintings, food, apparel, a music recording, a film sequence.) 4. Pick out a specific passage from the book a description, an idea, a line of dialogue and ask members to comment on it. (Consider how a passage reflects a character...or the work's central meaning...or members' lives or personal beliefs.) 5. Choose a primary character and ask members to comment on him or her. (Think character traits, motivations, how he/she affects the story's events and characters, or revealing quotations.) 6. Play a literary game. Use one of our Icebreaker Games. They're smart and fun guaranteed to loosen you up and get your discussion off to a lively, even uproarious start.

6 7. Distribute hand-outs to everyone in order to refresh memories or to use as talking points. Identify the primary characters and summarize the plot.

7 Reviews Book title: The Accident If you like Harlan Coben, you ll love Linwood Barclay. Peter Robinson, author of Bad Boy Praise for Linwood Barclay s Never Look Away The writing is crisp; the twists are jolting and completely unexpected. Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly Fast-paced and with an irresistible blend of suspense and tension. Tucson Citizen