I have been looking forward to reading this one before it even existed - that's how much I absolutely loved North's debut novel, The Whisper Man. I tried to win ARCs of this from every avenue that I knew of, to no avail, so I was very relieved that Book of the Month offered it as their July thriller option. Even better, now my print copies match!
While scenes from. the first book still haunt me (I am thankful every day that we don't have a letter flap to our house!), this one isn't quite as creepy as the first. It is told in largely then and now sections, from two main perspectives. Paul is at the periphery of a terrible murder when he's fifteen. And after leaving his hometown of Gritten, he plans to never return. Twenty-five years later, his mother is dying and Paul is once again back in his childhood home. Meanwhile, a detective investigates a current murder, one that has echoes of the murder twenty-five years earlier. It's well-written, with some definite twists to the plot. One of those twists, though, is so purposefully manipulative, that I have to admit that this somewhat spoiled the book for me, overshadowing the actual bigger plot points. There are a few chilling moments, but I never felt as scared as I did while reading the first book. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed it and already eager to see what North's third book will look like!
While scenes from. the first book still haunt me (I am thankful every day that we don't have a letter flap to our house!), this one isn't quite as creepy as the first. It is told in largely then and now sections, from two main perspectives. Paul is at the periphery of a terrible murder when he's fifteen. And after leaving his hometown of Gritten, he plans to never return. Twenty-five years later, his mother is dying and Paul is once again back in his childhood home. Meanwhile, a detective investigates a current murder, one that has echoes of the murder twenty-five years earlier. It's well-written, with some definite twists to the plot. One of those twists, though, is so purposefully manipulative, that I have to admit that this somewhat spoiled the book for me, overshadowing the actual bigger plot points. There are a few chilling moments, but I never felt as scared as I did while reading the first book. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed it and already eager to see what North's third book will look like!