What an entertaining ride!

filled star filled star filled star filled star star unfilled
dezzy33 Avatar

By

When Paul was a teenager, he was detained for the brutal murder of his friend. After an investigation, Paul’s former friends Charlie and Billy were arrested. Billy was thrown in jail for 25 years. Charlie, the instigator of the crime, disappeared into woods nicknamed The Shadows and was never heard from again. Or was he?

Twenty-five years later in another town, a murder has been committed that remarkably resembles the original murder. Detective Amanda Beck starts digging into the crime and comes across a website chat board where CC666 was giving tips to the boys who committed the new murder. Beck travels to the gloomy town to question Billy, who is now out of prison and living in his parents’ house. But when she arrives at the house, she finds that Billy has been murdered too. Other weird things are going on around town. Paul, who is back in town for the first time in 25 years to see his mother in hospice, is beginning to wonder if Charlie really is gone as things become stranger and stranger.

The timeline flips back and forth between Paul’s life leading up to the murder 25 years ago, and the present day where Paul has returned to his hometown of Gritten. We get both Detective Beck’s and Paul’s POV in the modern timeline, which was wonderfully narrated by 2 separate actors. I especially enjoyed the dual narration since the last audiobook I read had a man reading the woman’s part - poorly.

The story itself was atmospheric and creepy. I felt like I too, was traveling around Gritten, with its depressed streets and dark woods.

And the little surprise that the author just stuffs in there completely shocked me. There is nothing like sitting slack-jawed in traffic wondering what you missed that you didn’t see it coming.

I had heard of The Whisper Man before this, and now I definitely want to read it.