A Solid Thriller that Draws Inspiration from Classic Horror
This book has some genuinely scary moments; like, “glad I’m reading this in the daylight” level scary. However, at its heart it’s a crime drama. I don’t love crime novels, so I found myself skimming a lot of the third person chapters. It was the chapters centering around Tom and Jake that kept me invested in the story. Fatherhood, and the fear of parental failure, play a huge role in this novel. They’re both grieving in very different, very separate ways. You can see a divide forming between them from the very first chapter and you spend most of the novel wondering if it will open enough to welcome in The Whisper Man.
This is also the story of how childhood trauma shapes our lives. Every major male character, and this books is 80% male characters, has suffered some sort of trauma. There are three generations, each with their own pasts and though a lot the times the relationships in The Whisper Man seem to mirror one another, they also diverge. It’s reminiscent of Peter Pan’s shadow and makes the reader question the amount of which we are truly a product of our environment. Alex North, the author, does a pretty good job of setting up these themes throughout the beginning of the novel. It’s not a super long read, so it doesn’t go very deep into the stages of grief and their effects, but there’s an appropriate amount of character building.
I did think that the resolution was very rushed, especially from a relationship and character standpoint. There is one odd chapter in the very end about Amanda, the female detective assigned to Neil Spencer’s case, where it seems like North was rushing to try and make her dynamic.
In the end, I liked The Whisper Man. It wasn’t my favorite, but I also didn’t hate it. It was very atmospheric at times, which I like. The descriptions of the house remind me a lot of the way that Shirley Jackson talks about Hill House in The Haunting of Haunting Hill House. It gave me goosebumps at times and made me very glad that I don’t have a two story house (or small children that sing creepy nursery rhymes). If you like crime dramas, thrillers, and the occasional spooky ghost story then I encourage you to give The Whisper Man a shot.
This is also the story of how childhood trauma shapes our lives. Every major male character, and this books is 80% male characters, has suffered some sort of trauma. There are three generations, each with their own pasts and though a lot the times the relationships in The Whisper Man seem to mirror one another, they also diverge. It’s reminiscent of Peter Pan’s shadow and makes the reader question the amount of which we are truly a product of our environment. Alex North, the author, does a pretty good job of setting up these themes throughout the beginning of the novel. It’s not a super long read, so it doesn’t go very deep into the stages of grief and their effects, but there’s an appropriate amount of character building.
I did think that the resolution was very rushed, especially from a relationship and character standpoint. There is one odd chapter in the very end about Amanda, the female detective assigned to Neil Spencer’s case, where it seems like North was rushing to try and make her dynamic.
In the end, I liked The Whisper Man. It wasn’t my favorite, but I also didn’t hate it. It was very atmospheric at times, which I like. The descriptions of the house remind me a lot of the way that Shirley Jackson talks about Hill House in The Haunting of Haunting Hill House. It gave me goosebumps at times and made me very glad that I don’t have a two story house (or small children that sing creepy nursery rhymes). If you like crime dramas, thrillers, and the occasional spooky ghost story then I encourage you to give The Whisper Man a shot.