Reader's Pick - The Farm by Tom Rob Smith

One of our readers recently enjoyed The Farm by Tom Rob Smith and was kind enough to let us know. Here is what he had to say.

The Farm by Rob Tom Smith is the story of a emotionally fragile son who must choose between his frantic mother and his father who she accuses of an unspecified crime. It is a study of how the same events, viewed through different eyes can seem harmless to one but sinister to another. It examines how we choose to remember the past and shows the power of the mind to protect itself against memories to painful to face. You find yourself drawn in and second-guessing right to the end.

Publishers' Weekly writes: "At the start of this superior psychological thriller from Thriller Award–winner Smith (Child 44), the narrator, a Londoner known only as Daniel, receives a phone call from his father, who has retired with his wife to a farm in Sweden. The father tells Daniel that his mother is in the hospital. For months, she has been “imagining things—terrible, terrible things.” Before Daniel can fly to Sweden, his father calls again to inform him that she persuaded the doctors to authorize her discharge and has disappeared. As Daniel struggles to accept that news, his mother phones to announce that she’s flying to Heathrow and that everything his father has told him “is a lie.” When she arrives, she offers a complex tale to buttress her conviction that she has been plotted against, leaving Daniel uncertain as to whom and what to believe. Smith keeps the reader guessing up to the powerfully effective resolution that’s refreshingly devoid of contrivances."

The Farm is suspenseful and intricately plotted and brings to mind authors like Dennis Lehane, Gillian Flynn and Daniel Silva.