
I Will Ruin You
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $25.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
George Newbern
-
Johnathan McClain
-
By:
-
Linwood Barclay
About this listen
"Linwood Barclay's I Will Ruin You is a page-turner that also has important things to say. You'll get your money's worth out of this one."–Stephen King
In the latest novel from New York Times bestselling author Linwood Barclay, a teacher’s act of heroism inadvertently makes him the target of a dangerous blackmailer who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.
How would you react in a life-or-death situation?
It’s a question everyone asks themselves, but few have to face in real life. English teacher Richard Boyle certainly never thought he would find himself talking down a former student intent on harming others, but when Mark LeDrew shows up at Richard’s school with a bomb strapped to his chest, Richard immediately jumps into action. Thanks to some quick thinking, he averts a major tragedy and is hailed as a hero, but not all the attention focused on him is positive.
Richard’s brief moment in the spotlight puts him in the sights of a deranged blackmailer with a score to settle. The situation rapidly spirals out of control, drawing Richard into a fraught web of salacious accusations and deadly secrets. As he tries to uncover the truth he discovers that there’s something deeply wrong in the town—something that ties together Mark, the blackmailer, and a gang of ruthless drug dealers, and Richard has landed smack in the middle of it. He’s desperate to find a way out, but everyone in his life seems to be hiding something, and trusting the wrong person could cost him everything he loves.
What price will he pay for one good deed?
©2024 Linwood Barclay (P)2024 HarperCollins PublishersPeople who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Lie Maker
- A Novel
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain, Graham Halstead
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Your dad’s not a good person. Your dad killed people, son. These are some of the last words Jack Givins’ father spoke to him before he was whisked away by witness protection, leaving Jack and his mother to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives as best they could. Years later, Jack is a grown man with problems of his own. He’s a talented but struggling author, barely scraping by on the royalties from his moderately successful first book. So when the U.S. Marshals approach him with a lucrative opportunity, he’s in no position to turn them down.
-
-
Wow!
- By Dee Norenberg on 05-17-23
By: Linwood Barclay
-
Look Both Ways
- A Novel
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Ako Mitchell
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The media have descended on Garrett Island, a small, isolated community that is the setting of a visionary experiment. All the residents’ cars were sent to the mainland and for the past month the islanders have been “driving” the Arrival, a revolutionary autonomous vehicle. With a simple voice command, an Arrival will take you wherever you want to go and, because the fleet is networked and aware of one another, car travel is now 100% safe. The future, it seems, has arrived.
-
-
not my favorite
- By kathy on 10-10-23
By: Linwood Barclay
-
The Accident
- A Novel
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s the new normal at the Garber household in Connecticut: Glen, a contractor, has seen his business shaken by the housing crisis, and now his wife, Sheila, is taking a business course at night to increase her chances of landing a good-paying job. But she should have been home by now. Waiting for Sheila’s return, with their eight-year-old daughter sleeping soundly, Glen soon finds his worst fears confirmed: Sheila and two others have been killed in a car accident. Adding to the tragedy, the police claim Sheila was responsible. Glen knows it’s impossible.
-
-
Political statements are annoying
- By 9S on 04-06-12
By: Linwood Barclay
-
Trust Your Eyes
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Ken Marks, Rick Holmes
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Kilbride is a map-obsessed schizophrenic so affected that he rarely leaves the self-imposed bastion of his bedroom. But with a computer program called Whirl360.com, he travels the world while never so much as stepping out the door. He pores over and memorizes the streets of the world. He examines every address, as well as the people who are frozen in time on his computer screen. Then he sees something that anyone else might have stumbled upon - but has not - in a street view of downtown New York City: an image in a window. An image that looks like a woman being murdered.
-
-
One of 2013's best!
- By karen on 09-07-13
By: Linwood Barclay
-
Too Close to Home
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a quiet suburban neighborhood, in the house next door, a family is brutally murdered for no apparent reason. You can't help thinking, "That could have been us". And you start to wonder, "What if we're next?" That's the question Jim and Ellen Cutter are asking, and the answers aren't reassuring.
-
-
Plots and subplots galore
- By shelley on 04-10-14
By: Linwood Barclay
-
Best Friends Forever
- By: Margot Hunt
- Narrated by: Sarah Naughton
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kat Grant and Alice Campbell have a friendship forged in shared confidences and long lunches lubricated by expensive wine. Though they're very different women - the artsy socialite and the struggling suburbanite - they're each other's rocks. But even rocks crumble under pressure. Like when Kat's financier husband, Howard, plunges to his death from the second-floor balcony of their South Florida mansion. Howard was a jerk, a drunk, a bully, and, police say, a murder victim. The questions begin piling up.
-
-
Very, very good!
- By horslovr on 02-04-18
By: Margot Hunt
-
The Lie Maker
- A Novel
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain, Graham Halstead
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Your dad’s not a good person. Your dad killed people, son. These are some of the last words Jack Givins’ father spoke to him before he was whisked away by witness protection, leaving Jack and his mother to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives as best they could. Years later, Jack is a grown man with problems of his own. He’s a talented but struggling author, barely scraping by on the royalties from his moderately successful first book. So when the U.S. Marshals approach him with a lucrative opportunity, he’s in no position to turn them down.
-
-
Wow!
- By Dee Norenberg on 05-17-23
By: Linwood Barclay
-
Look Both Ways
- A Novel
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Ako Mitchell
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The media have descended on Garrett Island, a small, isolated community that is the setting of a visionary experiment. All the residents’ cars were sent to the mainland and for the past month the islanders have been “driving” the Arrival, a revolutionary autonomous vehicle. With a simple voice command, an Arrival will take you wherever you want to go and, because the fleet is networked and aware of one another, car travel is now 100% safe. The future, it seems, has arrived.
-
-
not my favorite
- By kathy on 10-10-23
By: Linwood Barclay
-
The Accident
- A Novel
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s the new normal at the Garber household in Connecticut: Glen, a contractor, has seen his business shaken by the housing crisis, and now his wife, Sheila, is taking a business course at night to increase her chances of landing a good-paying job. But she should have been home by now. Waiting for Sheila’s return, with their eight-year-old daughter sleeping soundly, Glen soon finds his worst fears confirmed: Sheila and two others have been killed in a car accident. Adding to the tragedy, the police claim Sheila was responsible. Glen knows it’s impossible.
-
-
Political statements are annoying
- By 9S on 04-06-12
By: Linwood Barclay
-
Trust Your Eyes
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Ken Marks, Rick Holmes
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Kilbride is a map-obsessed schizophrenic so affected that he rarely leaves the self-imposed bastion of his bedroom. But with a computer program called Whirl360.com, he travels the world while never so much as stepping out the door. He pores over and memorizes the streets of the world. He examines every address, as well as the people who are frozen in time on his computer screen. Then he sees something that anyone else might have stumbled upon - but has not - in a street view of downtown New York City: an image in a window. An image that looks like a woman being murdered.
-
-
One of 2013's best!
- By karen on 09-07-13
By: Linwood Barclay
-
Too Close to Home
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a quiet suburban neighborhood, in the house next door, a family is brutally murdered for no apparent reason. You can't help thinking, "That could have been us". And you start to wonder, "What if we're next?" That's the question Jim and Ellen Cutter are asking, and the answers aren't reassuring.
-
-
Plots and subplots galore
- By shelley on 04-10-14
By: Linwood Barclay
-
Best Friends Forever
- By: Margot Hunt
- Narrated by: Sarah Naughton
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kat Grant and Alice Campbell have a friendship forged in shared confidences and long lunches lubricated by expensive wine. Though they're very different women - the artsy socialite and the struggling suburbanite - they're each other's rocks. But even rocks crumble under pressure. Like when Kat's financier husband, Howard, plunges to his death from the second-floor balcony of their South Florida mansion. Howard was a jerk, a drunk, a bully, and, police say, a murder victim. The questions begin piling up.
-
-
Very, very good!
- By horslovr on 02-04-18
By: Margot Hunt
-
Never Look Away
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Cummings
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A warm summer Saturday. An amusement park. David Harwood is glad to be spending some quality time with his wife, Jan, and their four-year-old son. But what begins as a pleasant family outing turns into a nightmare after an inexplicable disappearance. A frantic search only leads to an even more shocking and harrowing turn of events.
-
-
Not bad but not his best
- By Girlbos on 04-05-12
By: Linwood Barclay
-
Double Indemnity
- A Legal Suspense
- By: Robert Whitlow
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Matt and Elena Thompson present the picture of perfection. But their enviable life isn't all it seems. Their marriage is on the rocks, and financial disaster looms. Then Matt is killed in a hunting accident, and the questions and accusations begin to mount. Attorney Liz Acosta, newly arrived in the mountains of north Georgia after graduating from law school, plans to get some job experience on her resume before returning home to seek a position with a big-time firm.
-
-
Great mystery
- By Nancy H. on 07-02-23
By: Robert Whitlow
-
If She Wakes
- By: Michael Koryta
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tara Beckley is a senior at idyllic Hammel College in Maine. As she drives to deliver a visiting professor to a conference, a horrific car accident kills the professor and leaves Tara in a vegetative state. At least, so her doctors think. In fact, she's a prisoner of locked-in syndrome: fully alert but unable to move a muscle. Trapped in her body, she learns that someone powerful wants her dead - but why? And what can she do, lying in a hospital bed, to stop them?
-
-
Hang in there... it’s worth it
- By Cheri on 09-21-19
By: Michael Koryta
-
Break Every Rule
- By: Brian Freeman
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tommy Miller is a man with deadly skills, hiding in Florida under a false identity. After being set up on an overseas mission, he’s on the run from terrorists—and from the government who betrayed him. So when his wife and daughter are violently abducted, it seems his ghosts are finally catching up with him. But Tommy isn’t the only one with secrets. His wife, Teresa, has been concealing her own dangerous past, and as Tommy races to rescue his family, he must peel away the clues she’s left behind.
-
-
Could Be an Exceptional Series!
- By Too Old on 09-23-24
By: Brian Freeman
-
No Time for Goodbye
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The house was deathly quiet. That was the first sign that something was terribly wrong. Fourteen-year-old Cynthia Bigge woke that morning to find herself alone. Her family - mother, father, and brother - had vanished without a word, without a note, without a trace. Twenty-five years later, Cynthia is still looking for answers. Now she is about to learn the devastating truth.
-
-
No Time for Goodbye gets 5*s all around
- By shelley on 06-25-14
By: Linwood Barclay
-
The House Hunt
- By: C.M. Ewan
- Narrated by: Tamaryn Payne, Christopher Bonwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For two years Lucy and Sam renovated their beautiful Victorian home but spiraling debts are forcing them to sell. The agreement with their real estate agent is that they won’t be home for viewings, but when Lucy gets a voicemail saying the Agent is running late, she realizes she will have to show the prospective buyer around herself. Suffering from extreme anxiety and claustrophobia, Lucy watches the stranger on their doorstep waiting to be let in.
-
-
A uniquely bizarre audiction and I want more!
- By Karenique on 04-18-25
By: C.M. Ewan
-
Whistle
- A Novel
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie Blunt has had an unimaginably terrible year. First, her husband was killed in a tragic hit-and-run accident, then one of the children’s books she’s built her writing and illustrating career on ignited a major scandal. Desperate for a fresh start, she moves with her son Charlie to a charming small town in upstate New York where they can begin to heal. But Annie’s year is about to get worse.
-
-
Eva!
- By Kindle Customer on 06-20-25
By: Linwood Barclay
-
Her Deadly Game
- Keera Duggan, Book 1
- By: Robert Dugoni
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Keera Duggan was building a solid reputation as a Seattle prosecutor, until her romantic relationship with a senior colleague ended badly. For the competitive former chess prodigy, returning to her family’s failing criminal defense law firm to work for her father is the best shot she has. With the right moves, she hopes to restore the family’s reputation, her relationship with her father, and her career.
-
-
Legal thriller filled with twists!
- By Wayne on 03-28-23
By: Robert Dugoni
-
A Noise Downstairs
- A Novel
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
College professor Paul Davis is a normal guy with a normal life. Until, driving along a deserted road late one night, he surprises a murderer disposing of a couple of bodies. That’s when Paul’s "normal" existence is turned upside down. After nearly losing his own life in that encounter, he finds himself battling PTSD, depression, and severe problems at work. His wife, Charlotte, desperate to cheer him up, brings home a vintage typewriter. But Paul swears it’s possessed and types by itself at night - and that it's somehow connected to the murderer....
-
-
The Gaslighter gets lit...
- By shelley on 07-29-18
By: Linwood Barclay
-
Wreckage
- By: J.D. Pratt, Andrew Wolfendon
- Narrated by: M. P. MacDougall
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I’m a second-rate artist living a solitary existence in my late parents’ rundown house. So why would a team of killers want to murder me and frame it as a suicide? Seems a fact worth knowing. I survive the ordeal only to discover my would-be executioners left behind a suicide note written in words that sound uncannily like mine. But that’s not the most disturbing part. The note reveals a secret from my past nobody could possibly know about—one that’s been haunting my life for eighteen years.
-
-
Outstanding!!
- By Luna on 06-29-25
By: J.D. Pratt, and others
-
Seeing Red
- By: Sandra Brown
- Narrated by: Victor Slezak
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kerra Bailey is a television journalist on the rise, and she's hot on the trail of a story guaranteed to skyrocket her career to even greater heights: an interview with the legendary Major Trapper. Twenty-five years ago, the major emerged a hero from the bombing of the Pegasus Hotel in downtown Dallas when he was photographed leading a handful of survivors out of the collapsing building. The iconic picture transformed him into a beloved national icon, in constant demand for speeches and interviews - until he suddenly dropped out of the public eye.
-
-
I'm no prude but...
- By Pat on 09-08-17
By: Sandra Brown
-
What Happened to Nina?
- A Novel
- By: Dervla McTiernan
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh, Stacey Glemboski, Lisa Flanagan, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nina and Simon are the perfect couple. Young, fun and deeply in love. Until they leave for a weekend at his family’s cabin in Vermont, and only Simon comes home.
-
-
Careful someone put spoilers in reviews!
- By Kelly on 05-07-24
By: Dervla McTiernan
Twist,twist, twist, typical Linwood Barclay style. He's a master.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A l l. Characters well developed. Sadly relevant setting
Moral conflicts
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fantastic
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Entertaining Story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Really good
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Mr Barclay never disappoints
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
believable without weird twist
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Good story; dumb people
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What I like about his stories is that I can easily imagine me in place of one of the characters or as an amalgamation of characters. Part of me could be Richard, a dedicated English teacher, who wants to expose his students to something outside of the boring required reading list. In my case I assigned Blindness by Jose Saramago to a middle schooler I was mentoring. Aside from the fascinating story itself the entire novel has no punctuation. It could have been me who on an ordinary day spots something curious out of the corner of my eye as my gazed flashed across the school room window during my class. It could have been any teacher that acted on their protective instinct to stop what threatened to cause great harm to the entire school. It could have been any teacher who found themselves labeled as hero in those circumstances while at the same time blamed for something innocent like giving a comforting hug to a grieving student that was misinterpreted as molestation. The mere suggestion followed up by an insinuating photo circulated on Facebook could permanently ruin my reputation as well as that of my family members.
I like it that Barclay sprinkles his stories with references to real events and books by other authors I’ve read, kind of like the arcane references slipped into a Law and Order episode.
The narrator of the audiobook version did a splendid job.
I can’t wait for his next book.
It could have been me
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
There were lots of twists and turns
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.