“I can’t imagine why anyone would be uneasy around all these dead men. Can you, Major?”

80. The Whisper Man – Alex North

So, this book with the butterfly handprint deal on the cover is way better than it appears. It read so quickly and was more suspenseful than I expected it to be by a long way. I expected the level of creepery and horror that thrillers are usually allowed where there isn’t a lot of significant dread created, no goosebumps are raised, that sort of thing. This actually takes some horror elements and uses them extremely well in a thriller told from several perspectives. It read really quickly and I really enjoyed it.

In Featherbank, history seems to be repeating itself when a young boy goes missing… just after single father Tom moves in with his son to get a fresh start. Geez. Tom’s fresh start is stuck the past he doesn’t know about when his son says someone is whispering to him, which is the exact MO of the serial child abductor/killer who was rumored to have an accomplice back 20 years ago. One thing that really put the stakes in was having the perspectives of Detectives Amanda and Pete, who actually have access to material about what happened in the past. The characters really didn’t read like cardboard cut-outs even though this was a very quick reading story and every scene/chapter really tied into the overall story well.

 

Wisting’s first Halloween photoshoot involved this tiny house, which is a fresh start for him as he had no other house, and there’s a big window to whisper at him through.

 

109. The Shadows – Alex North

This isn’t exactly a sequel to The Whisper Man and they aren’t listed as being part of a series, but they’re connected by one Detective Amanda Beck, murder, and the two involved towns are about 100 miles apart. Also, it seems like the murder of Paul the main character’s friend which is haunting him forever may have inspired another murder, hence the detective connection.

In this one, Paul returns home because his mother has dementia and thinks there’s someone in the house and, of course, this causes a reckoning with his past and his mother’s current state. He didn’t want to come home in the first place and get stuck ruminating about his friends and the murder. And now someone is also following him and he must also reckon with whomever that is as well. I can’t say The Shadows is as good as The Whisper Man, but it reads quickly and is different enough while being about a similar topic that I didn’t get mad while reading it and that’s a good sign.

 

Snuffy is nosing out the window and forcing Wisting to reckon with whatever is outside during this, a technically third, set up for the pumpkin photoshoot of 2023.