Why I liked it:
It's seriously creepy right from the start. While we only have 2 books to judge, this seems to be an Alex North hallmark. He sets the scenes perfectly in these dying towns which are described as being lacking in purpose and opportunity. These are the places that people want to leave but often find themselves stuck in. These descriptions really add to the perception that the characters are going to become trapped in their situations.
I loved the twists in this book. It made writing the review a little tricky, because there's one piece of information about 75% of the way through the book and it makes the reader re-evaluate everything they've read up to that point (as all good twists should). Once you know, you can't un-know it, and I look forward to re-reading this title with that knowledge the second time around.
I also like that North gives the reader everything that they need to know for the story to make sense without twisting the plot too dramatically in an effort to shock the reader. I don't love when authors make the bad guy at the end an unknown entity with motives that the reader would not have known ahead of time. North gave us all of the clues and I appreciated that, even if I didn't catch them all at the time. I did peg one of the twists, but the second one caught me completely off guard and I loved that.
What I would like to change:
I wish that I had re-read The Whisper Man more recently before starting this. For me, Detective Amanda Beck started out as a stranger for me. I had to go back and re-read some reviews from the first book to remember her character. I really appreciated that she was there and that there was a reference to the “Whisper Man” case in this book, since it was like finding an Easter egg for the fans, but I really had forgotten a lot about her in the meantime.
It's seriously creepy right from the start. While we only have 2 books to judge, this seems to be an Alex North hallmark. He sets the scenes perfectly in these dying towns which are described as being lacking in purpose and opportunity. These are the places that people want to leave but often find themselves stuck in. These descriptions really add to the perception that the characters are going to become trapped in their situations.
I loved the twists in this book. It made writing the review a little tricky, because there's one piece of information about 75% of the way through the book and it makes the reader re-evaluate everything they've read up to that point (as all good twists should). Once you know, you can't un-know it, and I look forward to re-reading this title with that knowledge the second time around.
I also like that North gives the reader everything that they need to know for the story to make sense without twisting the plot too dramatically in an effort to shock the reader. I don't love when authors make the bad guy at the end an unknown entity with motives that the reader would not have known ahead of time. North gave us all of the clues and I appreciated that, even if I didn't catch them all at the time. I did peg one of the twists, but the second one caught me completely off guard and I loved that.
What I would like to change:
I wish that I had re-read The Whisper Man more recently before starting this. For me, Detective Amanda Beck started out as a stranger for me. I had to go back and re-read some reviews from the first book to remember her character. I really appreciated that she was there and that there was a reference to the “Whisper Man” case in this book, since it was like finding an Easter egg for the fans, but I really had forgotten a lot about her in the meantime.