Linwood Barclay Books in Order

Linwood Barclay is a Canadian thriller author and former Toronto Star humour columnist best known for No Time for Goodbye, a #1 Sunday Times bestseller that sold over a million copies in the UK alone. He won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel for Too Close to Home and has since written more than 25 adult thrillers that were translated into 40+ languages.

This page lists all Linwood Barclay books in order, including the Zack Walker series, the No Time for Goodbye duology, the Promise Falls trilogy, standalone novels, his two children’s thrillers, and non-fiction books.

Latest Linwood Barclay Books

Not a Word
Not a Word, August 2026

Zack Walker Series (Books in Order)

The Zack Walker series follows suburban dad and science fiction writer Zack Walker, whose paranoid nature turns out to be more justified than his family acknowledges once they all moved to the suburb after Zach’s fear for their lives. The four books are set in and around Oakwood, Ontario, and are part crime, part dark comedy, which are different from Linwood Barclay’s later standalones.

Reading Order

  1. Bad Move, 2004
  2. Bad Guys, 2005
  3. Lone Wolf, 2006 (also titled Bad Luck)
  4. Stone Rain, 2007 (also titled Bad News)

No Time For Goodbye Series (Books in Order)

The No Time for Goodbye duology follows Cynthia Archer, who woke up one morning at age 14 to find her entire family had vanished without a trace. Next, we find Cynthia 25 years later, now married with a daughter, and a husband who helps her search for answers. No Safe House picks up the same characters years later.

Reading Order

  1. No Time for Goodbye, 2007
  2. No Safe House, 2014

Promise Falls Series (Books in Order)

The Promise Falls series is set in a fictional small town in upstate New York, and it follows reporter David Hadrwood, detective Barry Duckworth, and private investigator Cal Weaver who are trying to solve various interconnected cases in Promise Falls, all which somehow come back to the number 23. Final Assignment is a short story set in the same world, published between books 1 and 2.

Too Close to Home and Never Look Away are two earlier standalone novels set in Promise Falls and feature recurring characters including Cal Weaver. They are prequels to the trilogy and are worth reading first for the whole town’s background. However, the trilogy can be read separately. Parting Shot is a post-trilogy standalone also set in Promise Falls.

Reading Order

  1. Broken Promise, 2015
  2. Final Assignment, 2015
  3. Far From True, 2016
  4. The Twenty-Three, 2016
  5. Parting Shot, 2017

Prequel Standalone Novels

Chase Series (Books in Order)

The Chase middle-grade action-thriller series follows a genetically engineered dog, Chipper, who escapes from the secret organization called the Institute, and teams up with 12-year-old orphan Jeff Conway, as he is on the run from from the Institute.

Reading Order

  1. Chase, 2017
  2. Escape, 2018

Standalone Novels

Novellas and Short Stories

Anthologies

Non Fiction Books

Linwood Barclay

Linwood Barclay Biography

Linwood Barclay is an American-born Canadian author whose work includes crime thrillers, psychological suspense, children’s fiction, and non-fiction. He has published 25+ novels for adults since 2004, along with two novels in the Chase series for children.
Official website: linwoodbarclay.com

Born in Darien, Connecticut in 1955, Linwood Barclay moved to Canada at age of four when his father, a commercial illustrator, took a job in Toronto. After his father died when Barclay was sixteen, the family ran a cottage resort in Bobcaygeon, Ontario. He graduated with an English literature degree from Trent University in Peterborough, where one of his teachers was novelist Margaret Laurence. He also began a correspondence with mystery writer Ross Macdonald during his years in the university.

Unable to sell his books after graduation, he began working as a journalist. His first job as a reporter was with a small Ontario daily called the Peterborough Examiner in 1977 where he worked for two years before he switched to a small Oakville paper in 1979, where he remained until he joined the Toronto Star in 1981. He worked as an editor in the newsroom before becoming the paper’s humour columnist in 1993, a position he held until he retired from journalism in 2008 to write full-time.

His debut novel Bad Move was the beginning of the four-book Zack Walker series. His first standalone, No Time for Goodbye, became an international bestseller, remaining for seven weeks #1 on the UK charts. Seven years later, Linwood Barclay turned the novel into a duology with the publication of No Safe House. The Promise Falls series and a long run of standalone psychological thrillers followed in the next few years. Whistle, a standalone novel, is a departure from the author’s usual genres, being a supernatural thriller. Linwood Barclay lives in Oakville, Ontario with his wife Neetha.

Linwood Barclay Book Adaptations

  • The Accident – adapted as the six-part French television series L’Accident (2016)
  • Never Saw It Coming – adapted as the Canadian film Never Saw It Coming (2018), directed by Gail Harvey; Barclay wrote the screenplay
  • No Time for Goodbye – adapted as the French television series That Night (2023), broadcast on TF1 in April 2025

Linwood Barclay Awards and Honors

Awards

  • Too Close to Home – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel, Crime Writers of Canada (2009)
  • Broken Promise – Mystery Writers of America, Mary Higgins Award (2015)
  • Escape – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Juvenile/Young Adult Crime Book, Crime Writers of Canada (2019)

Nominations and Shortlists

  • Lone Wolf – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel (2007)
  • No Time for Goodbye – Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel (2008)
  • No Time for Goodbye – Barry Award for Best Thriller (2008)
  • No Time for Goodbye – International Thriller Writers Award for Best Novel (2008)
  • Stone Rain – Shamus Award for Best Original P.I. Paperback (2008)
  • Trust Your Eyes – Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards, Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read (2012)
  • A Tap on the Window – Barry Award for Best Novel (2014)
  • Find You First – Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best Crime Novel (2022)

Edited by

Marika

Founder of Mystery Sequels, a reference site focused on listing mystery and thriller books in the correct reading order. I maintain and update the site’s bibliographies as new titles are released, ensuring accuracy and consistency across author and series pages.

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15 Comments

  1. Linwood Barclay opened my eyes to thriller writing! NO TIME FOR GOODBYE got me hooked on him and crime drama. I have read most of his books and am Definitely a fan!

  2. In your short bks you do them on ebk form will you do it on bk form thank you from loraine

  3. Is there going to be a third book in the Chase books? I don’t want to say Trilogy, but I am hoping.

    1. I am trying to find a paperback copy of Linwood’s ‘Final Assessment’ cannot find or order online anywhere.?

  5. Please, please, bring back more Zack Walker adventures, they are hilarious..

  6. I’ve noticed it says everywhere that Final Assignment comes after Broken Promise, however; in Broken Promise, Barry Duckworh has told a few people ‘it’s 20 years today with the department’ yet in Final Assignment, he tells Cal Weaver ‘it’s gonna be 20 of years in a couple of weeks’

    This says to me that Final Assignment comes first?

  7. Just finished “the twenty three”…is there going to be another promise falls novel?

  8. I have just read broken promise which was amazing but at the end it left some unanswered questions as to who really killed rosemary gaynor and that the guy who has killed her has come back I’d like to know which book I read next to find these answers as I’m excited to know the truth thank you

  9. Zack walker series: what are titles for # 4,5,6? Can we look forward to this hilarious character again?

    1. #4 is Stone Rain, however there is no #5 and #6 at the moment (here’s hoping…)

    2. I love Linwood Barclay’s books. I read everyone of them that I can get my hands on. I would like to have a list of all the ones he has written. I am just finishing “A Tap on the window” I looked on the back and there is no listing of his books.
      As an aside, my husband was born in Norwood, Ont and we had a family cottage in Havelock, Ont. Peterborough is so close I just have such a feeling of pride knowing that you have done so well and know the area. I wish you and your family nothing but the best
      And look forward to, hopefully, many more of your books. Lois Morfitt.

  10. Linwood Barclay is the only author that I have read ALL his books and cannot wait for the next one coming out. He lives in Ontario Canada and used to write column for the Toronto Star newspaper. While it was funny, the column does not do justice for his talent. When I saw the ad for his fiction novel on the Star, I discounted that thinking how someone writes such a so so column can write any good novel. Then one time while vacationing in Mexico, I had time to kill and saw his book “the accident”. I picked it up and boy oh boy, I could not put it down. From then on, since April till the end of the year, I read ALL his other books! Now I have to wait till July 2015 for the newest one “broken promise”. You should give him a try!

    1. What a wonderful ode to Linwood Barclay, thank you so much for your comment! I’m also looking for A Broken Promise – just a few short months to go!

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