Bad Move — Linwood Barclay

LIFE IN THE SUBURBS CAN BE MURDER...

As a father of two overly curious, streetwise teenagers and husband to a wisecracking news-junkie journalist, work-at-home science fiction writer Zack Walker has a hard time convincing his loved ones to obey his rules for keeping them out of harm's way. Who can blame them? Zack's level of paranoia ranks with that of a Twilight Zone episode. But when city life begins to prove that Zack's fears are not so fantastical, he uproots his family and heads for the tranquility of the suburbs, where planned communities prevail and fathers rest easy. Well, not quite...

As Zack discovers that his plumber moonlights as a mercenary and the local dominatrix has a swimming pool, it becomes evident that the "nice" neighborhood of Oakwood isn't the crime-free paradise he'd been promised. Then Zack stumbles upon the body of a local environmentalist, and a madcap mission of deceit and murder that leads back to his own front door. Now this paranoid pop is in a state of high anxiety and will stop at nothing to keep his family safe. But can he keep himself from being snuffed in suburbia?