The haunting new thriller from Alex North, author of the New York Times bestseller The Whisper Man

You knew a teenager like Charlie Crabtree. A dark imagination, a sinister smile–always on the outside of the group. Some part of you suspected he might be capable of doing something awful. Twenty-five years ago, Crabtree did just that, committing a murder so shocking that it’s attracted that strange kind of infamy that only exists on the darkest corners of the internet–and inspired more than one copycat.

Paul Adams remembers the case all too well: Crabtree–and his victim–were Paul’s friends. Paul has slowly put his life back together. But now his mother, old and suffering from dementia, has taken a turn for the worse. Though every inch of him resists, it is time to come home.

It’s not long before things start to go wrong. Paul learns that Detective Amanda Beck is investigating another copycat that has struck in the nearby town of Featherbank. His mother is distressed, insistent that there’s something in the house. And someone is following him. Which reminds him of the most unsettling thing about that awful day twenty-five years ago.

It wasn’t just the murder.

It was the fact that afterward, Charlie Crabtree was never seen again…

Book Type:

Thriller

Review: The Shadows

A man confronts the truth of a horrific murder when he returns home twenty-five years later in Alex North’s latest, THE SHADOWS.

Paul Adams has stayed away from the small British town he grew up in, not wanting to remember what he so long ago experienced—the gruesome killing of a friend at the hands of two classmates. Back then, fifteen-year-old Paul and his best friend James fell in with the two other boys, one of them being the mysterious, somewhat odd Charlie Crabtree. Charlie leads their impressionable group into an exploration of lucid dreaming, encouraging them to document their dreams in order to seize control within them. But as intentions became malicious, and reality blurs with illusion, Paul left the group. In the end, however, he played a part in what would happen to his friend in the woods locals ominously deemed The Shadows—the place from where alleged killer Charlie Crabtree vanished.

Now back to care for his senile mother, Paul discovers there have been copycat murders. In fact, Detective Amanda Beck is investigating the latest when her path crosses with Paul. They each search for the truth behind what’s happening now, what happened then, and what happened to Charlie. Because now, things familiar and sinister repeat themselves, and again, Charlie is caught in the middle of everything he once sought to escape.

North (THE WHISPER MAN) delivers another haunting, unnerving thriller. Told in past/present timelines, his latest explores the relationships between friends, between fathers and sons, and the lasting effects of trauma. But it’s the dark and chilling atmosphere, the gruesomeness of the ritualistic murders, and the terrifying questions that linger, that unsettle and keep you on edge. I loved it.

Incredibly immersive, scary and unputdownable—this is one thriller you won’t want to miss.

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