I finally read The Whisper Man by Alex North, and it was better than I expected. In the opening chapters, I thought the book would focus on the paranormal or ghosts. It was a pleasant surprise to see it focus more on solving the kidnapping and murder of a local boy.

A young boy is kidnapped at the beginning, and Pete, a detective, remembers a similar case from 20 years earlier. In that case, the final boy was never found. Tom and Jake are also moving to the village. Jake is a creative, quiet boy who doesn’t have many friends. In fact, you quickly learn his friend is invisible. Tom hopes the move will be good for both of them.

The book starts with some creepy elements that had me on the edge of my seat. Knowing Jake had an invisible friend, I immediately started bracing for a horror-demon moment after my recent Trad Wife experience. Thankfully for me, the book starts leaning much harder into murder mystery than paranormal horror.

Tom and Jake end up in the center of the investigation, and I spent a lot of the book worried Tom would be gone at exactly the wrong moment and something would happen to Jake. Which, technically, does happen. Jake is kidnapped while Tom is away, but Tom is dealing with his own father’s death, so it never felt like he was careless just to move the plot forward. I was surprisingly invested in both of them making it through okay. I also wanted Tom to get some therapy and sign his son up for it too. I thought it might really help.

I appreciated that it took me a while to figure out who I thought was committing the crime. There were a lot of moving parts to distract me without making the story hard to follow, and I stayed engaged in both the investigation and what was happening with Tom and Jake. I also liked the ending, even if I did cry a little. It ended up being much more emotional than I expected from the creepy thriller I thought I was starting.