The Boy at the Keyhole

by Stephen Giles Narrated by Joel Froomkin

Overview

“A fiendishly efficient, gorgeously written, nasty little thrill ride of a psychological thriller. I couldn't put it down, and it's entirely possible that I'll never sleep again. A true tour-de-force of a debut novel.”-Lyndsay Faye, author of The Gods of Gotham and Jane Steele

For fans of Shirley Jackson, Sarah Waters and Daphne du Maurier, an electrifying debut about a boy left alone in his family's English estate with a housekeeper he suspects has murdered his mother

Nine-year-old Samuel lives alone in a once-great estate in Surrey with the family's housekeeper, Ruth. His father is dead and his mother has been abroad for months, purportedly tending to her late husband's faltering business. She left in a hurry one night while Samuel was sleeping and did not say goodbye.

Beyond her sporadic postcards, Samuel hears nothing from his mother. He misses her dearly and maps her journey in an atlas he finds in her study. Samuel's life is otherwise regulated by Ruth, who runs the house with an iron fist. Only she and Samuel know how brutally she enforces order.

As rumors in town begin to swirl, Samuel wonders whether something more sinister is afoot. Perhaps his mother did not leave but was murdered-by Ruth.

Artful, haunting and hurtling toward a psychological showdown, The Boy at the Keyhole is an incandescent debut about the precarious dance between truth and perception, and the shocking acts that occur behind closed doors.

Editorial Reviews

JANUARY 2019 - AudioFile

Joel Froomkin is an exceptional narrator for this eerie tale of a decaying house and a boy abandoned to the care of his housekeeper. Froomkin moves deftly between the older housekeeper, Ruth, and 9-year-old Samuel. We sympathize with young Samuel and his longing for his mother; his musings come to us in tender, vulnerable tones. This is in contrast with Ruth, whose personality comes in a rough, older voice and working-class accent. They are equally believable, and their credibility increases the intensity of this mystery. Is Samuel's mother truly abroad in America, or has something sinister happened to her? Listeners will hang on every word through the explosive ending. Froomkin takes us on a wild journey, and we love every second. M.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

07/02/2018
In Giles’s nightmarish first novel for adults, after the children’s novel The Death (and Further Adventures) of Silas Winterbottom: The Body Thief, nine-year-old Samuel Clay lives on an estate in Cornwall, England, with only the tyrannical housekeeper, Ruth Tupper, for company. Samuel’s mother, a widow, has gone to America to take care of her late husband’s business, having left at night without saying goodbye to Samuel. She does, however, send him postcards from America. But after four months, Samuel, who misses his mother, has begun to get ideas in his head (thanks to his hyper-imaginative schoolmate, Joseph): maybe his mother’s been murdered by Ruth, who buried her body in the basement and has been getting a confederate in America to send those postcards to him. The more closely he observes Ruth, who perhaps has secrets to hide, the more firmly he comes to believe that his suspicions are true. But it’s not until he actively begins to search for proof that Ruth’s behavior really begins to seem suspicious. Told entirely from Samuel’s point of view, the novel is so adeptly constructed and controlled that Ruth becomes a chilling study in ambiguity. Like Laird Koenig’s cult classic The Little Girl Who Lives down the Lane, this novel dramatically tests the limits of youthful innocence when faced with adult mendacity. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

"A fiendishly efficient, gorgeously written, nasty little thrill ride of a psychological thriller. I couldn't put it down, and it's entirely possible that I'll never sleep again. A true tour-de-force of a debut novel."—Lyndsay Faye, author of The Gods of Gotham and Jane Steele



"The Boy at the Keyhole is sinister and tight, amusing and intense, an emotional story of a sweet boy in a precarious psychological place. A fun and wicked read that is impossible to put down!”—Matthew Sullivan, author of Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore



“At the heart of this gripping, perfectly paced story is a lonely nine-year-old boy consigned to the often brutal control of his absent mother's housekeeper. A relentless, claustrophobic tale about the constancy and opacity of love, where the truth must be terrible in order to be believed.”—Charles Lambert, author of The Children’s Home



“Equal parts pastoral and piqued, The Boy at the Keyhole is a story that rises above its own devices and transcends the sum of its parts. The characters sink through the cracks of your mind, straight to your soul. And the questions herein will burn you to bits. You’ll talk about this book with everyone you meet. It’s that exciting.”—Josh Malerman, author of Bird Box



“Nightmarish…so adeptly constructed and controlled that Ruth becomes a chilling study in ambiguity. Like Laird Koenig’s cult classic The Little Girl Who Lives down the Lane, this novel dramatically tests the limits of youthful innocence when faced with adult mendacity.”—Publishers Weekly



“A psychological puzzle with its roots in Du Maurier and other gothic fiction…Giles creates a mystery rife with slowly unspooling tension…Subtle and haunting.”—Kirkus Reviews



"A neat little thriller with enough red herrings and clever ambiguities to keep the pages turning on the way to a disturbing, surprise ending."—Booklist



“Conjures a surreal, nightmarish world…captivating.”—AARP



“A modern Hitchcock…marvelous.”—Memphis Flyer

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170413362
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/04/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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