The Boy at the Keyhole, Stephen Giles
The Boy at the Keyhole, Stephen Giles
List: $23.99 | Sale: $16.79
Club: $11.99

The Boy at the Keyhole

Author: Stephen Giles

Narrator: Joel Froomkin

Unabridged: 6 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/04/2018


Synopsis

“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.

About Stephen Giles

Stephen Giles is the author behind the Ivy Pocket children's series, which has been translated into twenty-five languages. He lives in Australia. The Boy at the Keyhole is his first work for adults.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Tammy on May 19, 2018

A perfectly serviceable suspense novel that takes place within the confines of a manor house. A housekeeper is charged with the care of a nine year old boy during the absence of his mother. Needless to say things between them become rather tense and play out psychologically and otherwise until both......more

Goodreads review by Lindsay L on October 16, 2021

4.5 stars! A boy, his housekeeper and his absent mother. This book surprised me - I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. I truly adored it! Nine-year-old Samuel is under the care of his family’s housekeeper, Ruth. Samuel’s mother was abruptly called away on business in the middle of the night sev......more

Goodreads review by DJ on October 15, 2018

Favorite Quotes: Ruth could do that. Make a decree, like a queen or something, that certain topics had reached their end and that would be that. Now that he stood on the precipice of this wrongdoing, he felt the fluttering in his chest that made every breath sound as if he were sitting on a rattling......more

Goodreads review by Dennis on July 26, 2018

While, The Boy at the Keyhole promises a psychological horror showdown, it falls flat on its delivery. It's the early 1960s, and nine year old Samuel lives in this beautiful spacious estate in England, where he is being taken care of by his housekeeper Ruth. Samuel's father had passed away, leav......more

Goodreads review by Vicki on June 21, 2024

For Every Question There is an Answer... THE BOY AT THE KEYHOLE by Stephen Giles No spoilers. 4 1/2 stars. Samuel Clay, the boy of the story, lives in a decaying family estate in Surrey. His father is dead and his mother has gone to America to raise funds to save the ancestral home... Samuel counts the......more