The Whisper Man by Alex North
Date Finished: 7 Apr 2020
Format: Hardcopy
Genre: Thriller, Horror
Briefly: When Tom Kennedy moves to Featherbank following the death of his wife, the idea is to find a fresh start for himself and his young son, Jake. Tom didn’t know about the dark history of the town, about Frank Carter, a notorious serial killer who went down in Featherbank history as The Whisper Man. Carter is behind bars, but a new, shockingly similar child abduction in his old stomping grounds renews Det. Peter Willis’s long-held belief that he had an unidentified accomplice, and when Jake starts to report whispers at his bedroom window, Tom gets caught up in a terrifying rush to solve a decades-old case before it’s too late.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Notes:
This book tries to do and be too many things, and in the last chapters, manages to fumble almost all of them
It does manage to build suspense and atmosphere very well, especially at the beginning; I consider this to be, however, particular easy when you have children as your victims, raising the stakes considerably
The different perspectives in the book are extremely reflective of the book itself, by turns undercutting and amplifying the tension in the novel rather inconsistently and without warning
In theory, I like the idea of tying up the supernatural with a mystery like this, and the execution throughout the book allows these two plots to augment one another
It also tries to be a reflection on fatherhood and intergenerational trauma, again very promising through most of the book
Indeed, the relationship between Tom and Jake is far and away the most compelling part of the book
But those last chapters. In my opinion, they undo everything the rest of the book worked towards, turning what could have been a neat conclusion to the books’ themes into something messy and unfulfilled
Not a bad thing in itself, unless, as in this case, it runs contrary to the rest of the pages in the book.
Think we can just pretend those last 50 pages or so didn’t happen?
* Beat the Backlist : Published 2019
* 2020 Reading Challenge : Suspense/horror
* O.W.L.s Readathon (Charms) : White cover