Linwood Barclay
Linwood Barclay (born 1955) is an American-born Canadian author, noted as a novelist, humourist, and (former) columnist. His popular detective novels are bestsellers in Canada and internationally, beginning with No Time for Goodbye in 2007. He was born in Darien, Connecticut, son of Muriel and Everett Barclay. His father was a professional illustrator who moved his family to Canada in 1959 where he had accepted a job with William R. Templeton Studios in Toronto. In 1966 the Barclay family purchased a vacation campground in Bobcageon, Ontario, which they ran for about five years until the death of his father from lung cancer. Linwood Barclay recognized his interest in writing detective fiction at an early age, inspired by the works of Ross Macdonald, who had grown up in Kitchener, Ontario. After graduating high school Barclay studied literature at Trent University in Peterborough, where one of his teachers was the noted novelist Margaret Laurence. While at university, he began a correspondence with Ross Macdonald that proved inspirational for Barclay. They met once, at which time Macdonald inscribed one of his books to Barclay, "For Linwood, who will, I hope, someday outwrite me." After graduation, he could not sell any of his novels so he found work on a number of local newspapers, eventually landing a job at the Toronto Star in 1981. In 1993, following the death of Gary Lautens, he began to write a thrice-weekly humour column for the paper. He also released podcasts of his articles and published three collections: Mike Harris Made Me Eat My Dog, Father Knows Zilch: A Guide for Dumbfounded Dads, and This House Is Nuts!. Between 2004 and 2007, while still writing his column, he published four mystery/comedies, all featuring a sleuth named Zack Walker who works as a newspaper columnist by day. The books were published in England and were modestly successful. His break came in 2007 when he published No Time for Goodbye. A runaway bestseller in the United Kingdom, it quickly sold a million copies there and elsewhere. He took a one year sabbatical to promote his novel and he planned to return to the Star in September 2008 but on June 28, 2008 he wrote his last column, announcing his retirement from the Star. His 2012 novel Trust Your Eyes was a finalist for Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read from the UK Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards. At the time of its publication, it was announced that Trust Your Eyes had been optioned by a Hollywood studio, Barclay making the cover of Variety Magazine because of the bidding war it had caused. Barclay lives in Oakville, Ontario, with his wife of more than three decades, Neetha.