I Will Ruin You

Richard Boyle teaches 11th-grade English, and during class one morning, he looks out his window and sees a former student walking toward the entrance with a bomb strapped to his chest. He takes matters into his own hands and ends up confronting the bomber, who wants to see three specific individuals so he can complete his mission. Richard ends up saving everyone, but the bomber trips and blows himself up. Now a hero, Richard learns that his actions have made some people angry, including the bomber’s parents and a blackmailer with dirt on Richard, though he has no idea what that might be. In his case, good deeds are punished. To reveal any more of the story would spoil some neat surprises. Barclay immediately turns up the intense narrative and creates a page-turner that could quickly turn toward uncomfortable territory due to its subject matter, but since he is a master, he avoids that realm completely. Instead, we have a psychological and paranoid thriller that fires on all cylinders.