The Farm Lib/E

From Tom Rob Smith-author of the phenomenal Child 44 trilogy-comes one of the most anticipated novels of 2014... The Farm Until the moment he receives a frantic call from his father, Daniel believed his parents were headed into a peaceful, well-deserved retirement. They had sold their home and business in London and bid farewell to England, setting off to begin life anew on a remote, bucolic farm in rural Sweden. But with that phone call, everything changes. Your mother's not well, his father tells him. She's been imagining things-terrible, terrible things. She has had a psychotic breakdown and been committed to a mental hospital. Daniel prepares to rush to Sweden on the first available flight. Before he can board the plane, his father contacts him with even more frightening news: his mother has discharged herself from hospital, and he doesn't know where she is. Then his mother calls: I'm sure your father has spoken to you. Everything that man has told you is a lie. I'm not mad. I don't need a doctor. I need the police. I'm about to board a flight to London. 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, lies, a horrible crime, and a conspiracy that implicates his own father.

About the Author :
Tom Rob Smith graduated from Cambridge University in 2001 and lives in London. His first novel, Child 44, was a New York Times bestseller and an international success. Among its many honors, Child 44 won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He wrote the follow up to Child 44, The Secret Speech, in 2009, and the third installment in the series, Agent 6, was released in 2011. Smith lives in Central London. James Langton, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and later as a musician at the Guildhall School in London. He has worked in radio, film, and television, also appearing in theater in England and on Broadway. He is also a professional musician who led the internationally renowned Pasadena Roof Orchestra from 1996 to 2002. Suzanne Toren has over thirty years of experience in narration. She has won the American Foundation for the Blind's Scourby Award for Narrator of the Year, AudioFile magazine named her the 2009 Best Voice in Nonfiction & Culture, and she is the recipient of multiple Earphones Awards. She performs on and off Broadway and in regional theaters and has appeared on Law & Order and in various soap operas.

Review :
A mind-blowing, addictive plot that will have you on the edge of your seat, tearing through the pages as the truth-involving a missing teenage girl, Swedish folklore, and some sinister neighbors-slowly leaks out. -- "Stylist (UK)" A pacey page-turner with an ending you'll be dying to talk about. -- "Good Housekeeping (UK), Thriller of the Month" Chilling, hypnotic, and thoroughly compelling. You will not read a better thriller this year. -- "Mark Billingham, international bestselling author of Sleepyhead" I read this book in two greedy sittings, absolutely and joyfully clueless as to where it was leading. Tom Rob Smith has created a truly original and chilling thriller, which makes you ask yourself, 'Who would I believe?' -- "Jojo Moyes, New York Times bestselling author" Is there anything more unnerving than the realization that you can't trust your own mother? Maybe the realization that you can't trust your father either. That's the killer premise of The Farm. -- "New York Times Book Review" Narrators Suzanne Toren and James Langton team up for this new thriller. As a mother tells her son the story that landed her in a psychiatric hospital, Toren's delivery of her desperation and paranoia is so convincing that listeners will likely want to institutionalize her themselves. As the son, Langton hones in on his character's internal conflict: Should he believe his pleading mother with her satchel of 'evidence' or trust his father's judgment that she's lost her grip on reality. Langton deftly juggles the son's unwavering love and impatient frustration. The story itself has weaknesses that cannot be overcome. Those who manage to weather the mother's entire bizarre story will likely be disappointed with the anticlimactic ending. Nonetheless, the narrations are outstanding. -- "AudioFile" On rare occasions, an author pulls off the high-wire act of writing a crime-oriented novel that easily transcends the genre. The Farm is one of these...[Smith's] skills are as finely honed as ever, with this tale that's both a page-turner and a searing examination of the lives of our protagonist, his lover, and his family. Structurally innovative and stylistically resonant, The Farm is a remarkable achievement. -- "Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author" Smith has skipped over from Stalin's Russia to the idyllic Swedish countryside for his latest thriller...Smith does creepy very well, setting scenes that slowly build in intensity, and he keeps readers guessing about who can and cannot be trusted...A satisfying mystery on ground that, though familiar, manages to yield surprises in Smith's skillful telling. -- "Kirkus Reviews" Superior...Smith keeps the reader guessing up to the powerfully effective resolution that's refreshingly devoid of contrivances. -- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)" The author's first stand-alone novel after his wildly successful Soviet-era trilogy hits the ground running...The unreliability of Tilde's narration-is she telling the truth about this sinister scheme or is she crazy?-provides the novel with a constant tension...A worthy addition to the growing canon of Scandinavian crime thrillers. -- "Library Journal" This is a neatly plotted book full of stories within stories, which gradually unravel to confound our expectations...Smith's twisting, turning novel shows that Scandi crime also retains the ability to surprise and thrill. -- "Guardian (UK)" Tom Rob Smith breathes new life into the landscape, transcending the traditional crime fiction genre with an intricately knitted thriller steeped in mythology...[Smith] demonstrates the same craftsmanship that saw his highly acclaimed novel Child 44 claim the Galaxy Book Award for Best New Writer...Meticulously weaving together literary themes of revenge and madness...this latest offering is a tapestry of fairytales old and new; so unsettling and oppressive that it blurs the distinctions between sanity and madness, reality and fantasy, leaving the reader guessing until the bitter end. -- "Independent (UK)"