The Whisperer [Paperback]

It's not uncommon when reading a thriller to get a feeling that it's been written to be filmed - clues are a big car chase leading up to the climax, and the hero(ine) wandering round a dark, empty building at night with no idea what else is hiding in the darkness.
This, though is the first book I've read which felt more like a literary version of a computer game, and I've been trying to work out why.
One reason I think is the non-specific locale. It's definitely not the author's Italy, but not quite America either, so the impression is of a world not quite as we know it. (That might be a useful device for an author come to think of it - at least you don't need to worry about the anoraks writing to you to point out that a deputy in West Virginia isn't entitled to enter a deserted property without previously doing A, B or C).
Add to that the jump to different gothic locations, among them the huge, deserted orphanage and the vast mansion with a dying owner kept secluded from the world. Each of these seems to exist in isolation, as if we're moving from one stage to another, almost entirely separate, one.
Similarly with the villains - without giving too much away, various murders are solved along the way, done and dusted and put behind the team, but none of them is the big one, which remains unresolved up to (and possibly beyond) the big Game Over.
That all said and analysed, it must be admitted that on its own terms this is a terrific book. It's as if the author worked out what readers of this sort of book want, and resolved to give it them in spades. You want a serial killer? How about a series of serial killers? A mole in the investigating team? Yep, let's have two or three of those. A twist in the tail? No problem; plus a couple before that as well. Oh, and I know you didn't ask, but let's have a medium as well; in this case a medium communing with someone who isn't actually dead yet.
The only thing is, I can't really see where the author can go from here - he seems to have poured into this one as much as you'd expect to find in an entire series.
All in all, if you like restraint and realism in your crime fiction, this probably isn't your cup of tea; if on the other hand you enjoy an over-the-top romp with no holds barred and a creepy atmosphere sustained through the entire book, with the likelihood that the ground is going to be cut away from under your feet at any time, then give it a go.
(By the way, to those who say that the central conceit was borrowed from Agatha Christie - maybe it was, but she borrowed it from Shakespeare's Othello anyway. A good idea is always worth rehashing).

I'm a bit ambivalent about this book. It started off so well, gripping me from the first page but about halfway through it started to pall. One of the problems for me is that I got no sense of place from the book. Presumably it's set in Italy but throughout there was nothing to suggest this. If you think about many crime writers they produce novels which are firmly set in their culture. Edinburgh looms large in the works of Rankin, Rome in the Zen series but this seems to be set in a bland no man's land. But what of the plot? Again, it started off well. Six severed left arms being found and linked to the disappearance of five little girls and then the realisation that the sixth child was still alive and the feverish hunt to find her. An expert in finding missing children is brought in to help the police team and there are the usual stand offs between the newcomer and the established team. As I said earlier it was page turning for about 200 pages but unfortunately it's over 400 pages long so that leaves quite a lot of space for disillusion to set in. The plot rambles off on diversions which go nowhere, there are too many characters and it becomes very complicated. The denouement produces a gruesome twist which I didn't see coming (which is quite unusual these days) and I think that if you like crime fiction to be a bit over the top then you will enjoy it. If you prefer more understated writing though with plausible plots then this probably isn't for you. On the whole I quite liked it.

The award for the most misleading claims made on a book cover must go to this novel. Not Italian, it's style and language is anchored firmly in the US without admitting to being anywhere identifiable. The characters are unbelievable and the plot laborious with the inclusion of gory material attempting to give it substance. This is not a literary thriller and does not deserve any comparison to the Stieg Larsson books. It represents the greatest book purchase disappointment of the last decade. I got to 99 pages before I gave up and tossed it in the bin.