Trust Your Eyes by Linwood Barclay

In Trust Your Eyes, Thomas Kilbride, a schizophrenic, is obsessed with maps. So much so, he spends most of his time on his computer using a program called Whirl360 and rarely leaves his bedroom. He goes street by street, city by city, studying everything on the screen, memorizing it. That's his life, until he sees an image that looks like a woman being murdered in downtown New York. He shares what he's seen with his brother, Ray, who takes care of him. Ray doesn't quite believe Thomas, but agrees to poke around a little. It soon becomes apparent, though, that Thomas was right. A woman has been murdered and they have stepped into the middle of something very deadly.

I loved this book. Even though I'm a somewhat slow reader, I got through this one in just a couple of days. It was so good I didn't want to put it down. It was suspenseful and psychologically thrilling. The storyline was sort of like a modern twist on the movie Rear Window. It was awesome!

Barclay bounces between storylines and time periods quite a bit in this book. At times, I was wondering how it was all going to come together. It finally did, but not before making many twists and turns that had me on the edge of my seat.

Thomas was such a great character. I really felt sorry for him, though. After the death of his father, he was so isolated with no face-to-face contact with anyone but his brother. His extreme interest in maps was very cool. I like maps, too, however, my interest is definitely not at this level. Having said that, I was oddly fascinated and totally drawn in by Thomas's obsession. It was interesting to see how his passion for maps combined with his mental illness lead him to his current state of mind. I loved that his delusions included emails to the CIA, keeping them informed of his activities and progress, and phone calls with President Clinton.

I've read two other books by Barclay. Here are my reviews for those: The Accident and Never Look Away. I loved them both.

I also have a number of books by this author that are still on my to-be-read bookshelf. I know they are going to be good, I just have to find time to read them. It's another case of buying books faster than I can read them.

Highly recommended. Barclay is definitely one of my favourite authors.

For more information about this book, please visit the Random House website.

For more information about the author, please visit Linwood Barclay's website.

Trust Your Eyes by Linwood Barclay, Doubleday Canada (Random House), ©2012. ISBN 9780385669573(Trade paperback), 498p.