Book Review: “The Whisper Man” by Alex North
Håfa adai! Welcome to my review of The Whisper Man by Alex North, a spine-chilling and heartbreaking psychological thriller that explores the cycle of trauma.
This book review consists of two parts: a spoiler-free plot summary and my thoughts on the story. In the second part, I give my personal rating and break down the setting and worldbuilding, storytelling, cast of characters, and themes. There may be some lightweight spoilers—such as how characters interact with each other and the world around them—but I will not give away any major plot twists or endings. I want to share my opinions of the book and maybe encourage you to purchase a copy of your own.
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Spoiler-Free Plot Summary
Tom Kennedy has moved back to the small town of Featherbank with his 7 year-old son Jake after the recent death of his wife and Jake’s mother. Tom is doing the best he can to help his son adjust to their new reality as a single father-only child pair, but he feels Jake slowly slipping further away from him. Inexplicably drawn to their “new to them” home before they even came to town, Jake turns to an alarming coping mechanism as he tries to navigate life in a new place without his mother. Neither Tom nor Jake realize that Featherbank’s past is about to resurface as someone’s tormented gaze turns towards the young family of two.
Twenty years ago, Detective Inspector Pete Willis was assigned to the cases of missing children linked to the Whisper Man, Featherbank’s notorious child serial killer. Although DI Pete Willis was able to arrest the child killer, he was only able to recover the remains of four of the five known victims of the Whisper Man. How can he say that justice was served if there is still the remains of one little boy out there wanting to be returned home? He simply can’t and the unanswered questions continue to haunt him two decades later. The specter of the incomplete case grows larger in DI Pete Willis’ conscious when another child goes missing.
The recent disappearance is eerily similar to the pattern perpetrated by The Whisper Man: a child vanishes after an encounter with a stranger whispering from somewhere in the dark. But with the Whisper Man still sitting in prison, is Featherbank dealing with a deeply knowledgeable copy-cat or a returning accomplice of the original crimes? Detective Inspector Amanda Beck is assigned to the case and is determined not to let more children vanish from Featherbank. But the perpetrator remains several steps ahead of the younger DI when a second child goes missing. Perhaps a predator returning from the past can only be revealed by a something else returning from the past.
Important Trigger Warning for The Whisper Man
The Whisper Man depicts substance abuse, addiction, domestic violence, and the abduction, harm, and murder of children. These themes are essential to the story. If these are themes that cause you distress or discomfort in any way, then please make sure to take necessary steps to prepare and protect yourself before and after reading this book.
My Thoughts on The Whisper Man: 4.5 stars
I first read Alex North’s The Whisper Man (followed quickly by his thriller The Shadows) in 2022. I quickly made a plan to revisit this book after I started Bookmarks & Armchairs because I knew I wanted to share my thoughts on it here. In The Whisper Man, Alex North goes through multiple character’s experiences and a couple unexpected plot twists to demonstrate how the cycle of abuse can turn victims into perpetrators and how horrific acts committed by perpetrators can turn those trying to stop them into perpetrators themselves.
The Whisper Man’s main cast of characters includes Tom Kennedy, Tom’s son Jake, Detective Inspector Pete Willis, and Detective Inspector Amanda Beck. The story takes place in the small English town of Featherbank, where the widower Tom and his son Jake have moved to to have a fresh start after the unexpected and traumatic loss of Jake’s mother. In the chapters following Tom, the story is told from his first-person perspective. Meanwhile, chapters following any other character is told from an omniscient third-person perspective. This gave me the impression that the story is being told to the reader by Tom Kennedy, who happens to be a writer.
Tom is going through immense emotional turmoil since his wife’s death. He stumbles through adjusting to life as a single father—feeling inadequate (at best) or like a flat out failure (at worse)—and struggles with knowing if, when, and how he should ever move on. He does his best to try to reconnect with his young son, but it seems as if they are always on two separate pages. Poor Jake feels like a burden to his father in the aftermath of losing his mother. After they move to Featherbank, Jake begins to experience things he cannot understand or explain.
DI Pete Willis struggles to cope with the crushing guilt he feels for not being able to find the body of the fourth known victim of the Whisper Man twenty years ago. Chapters following Willis do not shy away from his dependency on alcohol to numb these feelings. In the present day events of the story, DI Amanda Beck does her best to catch up with the movements of the recent perpetrator of missing children in Featherbank while keeping Willis at a safe distance from the ongoing case.
The characters within The Whisper Man seem quite straightforward in the early parts of the story. So much so that I believed I could figure out what was going on in the town of Featherbank. But I was wrong! I absolutely did not expect the two major plot twists that occurred in the book. I will not say what they were, but I will say that they connect the 20 year-old crimes with the modern-day crimes while also connecting the investigators and the Kennedy’s in a way I did not anticipate. I appreciate the way in which these plot twists flow into the story in a natural way; they do not feel forced, rushed, or shoehorned. Additionally, the plot twists amplify what I interpret to be the overall thesis of The Whisper Man.
“It always ends where it starts” is a line repeated several times throughout The Whisper Man. From my interpretation of the story, this refers to the complex cyclical nature of trauma and abuse. It is important to understand that two things can be true at the same time: a person can be a victim and then go on to create victims. This means that you can empathize with the past version of an individual while being appalled by the present-day version of that same individual. In The Whisper Man, there are multiple examples of how this vicious cycle is created and repeated in a variety of contexts, adding an absolutely heartbreaking element to this story.
In addition to the levels of heartbreak, The Whisper Man presents a truly spine-chilling story. There were scenes and elements of this story that would make you feel a little paranoid about the sounds you hear at night. That being said, I would classify The Whisper Man as a moderately intense thriller that peaks over the boundary into the realm of horror. I did not have to walk away or take breaks from the story, but I was creeped out in more than a few chapters.
My overall rating for Alex North’s The Whisper Man is 4.5 out of 5 stars. This story is a heartbreaking and bone-chilling tale that cautions the ways in which cycles of abuse can be created and repeated. Its characters quickly transform from seemingly straightforward to complex in a small amount of time. There are plot twists I did not predict. And I appreciate how none of the characters are incompetent fools creating more problems for them to get out of. I recommend The Whisper Man to those who are newcomers to mystery novels as well as lifelong readers of the genre.
Dångkulo' na' saina ma'åse'! Thank you so much for reading my review of The Whisper Man by Alex North.
Rating Cheat Sheet
4.75 - 5.00 stars: Everyone should read this book! (If you’re into that sort of thing.)
4.00 - 4.50 stars: I appreciated many aspects of this book. I recommend it!
3.00 - 3.75 stars: I liked some aspects of this book. I won’t revisit it, but someone else might really like it.
2.00 - 2.75 stars: There were some things I appreciated about this book, but I do not recommend it.
0.25 - 1.75 stars: I do not recommend this book. I did not enjoy or appreciate the experience of it.
Post Date: 10 March 2025
Published: 13 June 2019
Publisher: Celadon Books
