The Farm

The hotly anticipated follow-up to Tom Rob Smith's widely celebrated, Booker-longlisted debut novel Child 44

Until the moment he received a frantic call from his father, Daniel believed his parents were headed into a peaceful, well-deserved retirement. They had sold their home and business in London, and said "farewell to England" with a cheerful party where all their friends had gathered to wish them well on their great adventure: setting off to begin life anew on a remote, bucolic farm in rural Sweden.

But with that phone call, everything changes. Your mother's not well, his father tells him. She's been imagining things--terrible, terrible things. She's had a psychotic breakdown, and has been committed to a mental hospital.

Daniel prepares to rush to Sweden, on the first available flight the next day. Before he can board the plane, his father contacts him again with even more frightening news: his mother has been released from the hospital, and he doesn't know where she is.

Then, he hears from his mother:

I'm sure your father has spoken to you. Everything that man has told you is a lie. I'm not mad. I don't need a doctor. I need the police. I'm about to board a flight to London. Meet me at Heathrow.

Caught between his parents, and unsure of who to believe or trust, Daniel becomes his mother's unwilling judge and jury as she tells him an urgent tale of secrets, of lies, of a horrible crime and a conspiracy that implicates his own father.

Tom Rob Smith graduated from Cambridge University in 2001 and lives in London. Born in 1979 to a Swedish mother and an English father, his bestselling novels in the Child 44 trilogy were international publishing sensations. Among its many honours, Child 44 won the International Thriller Writer Award for Best First Novel, the Galaxy Book Award for Best New Writer, the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the inaugural Desmond Elliot Prize. The forthcoming film adaptation of Child 44 stars Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

'On rare occasions, an author pulls off the high-wire act of writing a crime-oriented novel that easily transcends the genre. The Farm is one of these. In the vein of Høeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow and le Carré's A Perfect Spy, the tale brilliantly choreographs the collision of the present with the familial past. Author Smith takes a new direction here, but his skills are as finely honed as ever, with this tale that's both a page turner and a searing examination of the lives of our protagonist, his lover and his family. Structurally innovative and stylistically resonant, The Farm is a remarkable achievement' --Jeffery Deaver

'Chilling, hypnotic and thoroughly compelling. You will not read a better thriller this year' --Mark Billingham

'Tom Rob Smith has created a truly original and chilling thriller, which makes you ask yourself: who would I believe?' --Jojo Moyes

'This is a neatly plotted book full of stories within stories, which gradually unravel to confound our expectations...Smith's twisting, turning novel shows that Scandi crime also retains the ability to surprise and thrill' --Guardian

'A mind-blowing, addictive plot that will have you on the edge of your seat, tearing through the pages as the truth involving a missing teenage girl, Swedish folklore and some sinister neighbours slowly leaks out' –Stylist
‘Gripping, atmospheric...This absorbing novel thrives on gradually revealing the intimate details of lives, showing how they become hidden not only from strangers, but from those closest to them. The relationship between parents and children is excellently explored as the author traces the toxic effect of lies and reveals some shocking home truths’ --Observer

'A pacey page-turner with an ending you'll be dying to talk about' --Good Housekeeping

'This is a tale of suspense as a man is torn between his mother and father, not knowing who to trust. Packed with conspiracies and secrets' --Woman & Home

'The Farm is tense, twisting and claustrophobic, and is everything you could want in a thriller'--The Bookseller

'Gripping' --Gay Times

'A taut and atmospheric psychological thriller, which keeps the reader guessing until the very end...Rob Smith breaks new ground, geographically and stylistically...the story is compelling, well-crafted and gripping...an excellent and unusual thriller'-- Irish Independent

'Tom Rob Smith returns with a brilliant psychological thriller...An eerie ride, perfect for fans of Gone Girl' --Viv Groskop's Recommended Reads, Red

'Tom Rob Smith breathes new life into the landscape, transcending the traditional crime fiction genre with an intricately-knitted thriller steeped in mythology. In The Farm, Rob Smith demonstrates the same craftsmanship that saw his highly-acclaimed novel Child 44 claim the Galaxy Book Award for Best New Writer and long-listed for the Manbooker Prize, among its many plaudits. This latest offering is a tapestry of fairytales old and new; so unsettling and oppressive that it blurs the distinctions between sanity and madness, reality and fantasy, leaving the reader guessing until the bitter end' --Independent

'The author of smash-hit period thriller Child 44 (soon to be a film starring Tom Hardy) shifts style for this satisfying and original psychological thriller' -- 5 star review, Heat