Book Review: The Whisperer

By Sandy Amazeen Nov 12, 2011, 2:45 GMT

A gripping literary thriller and smash bestseller that has taken Italy, France, Germany and the UK by storm.Six severed arms are discovered, arranged in a mysterious circle and buried in a clearing in the woods. Five of them appear to belong to missing girls between the ages of eight and eighteen. The sixth is yet to be identified. Worse still, the girls\' bodies, alive or dead, are nowhere to be ...more

Officer Mila Vasquez has built a solid reputation for finding lost or abducted children, a reputation that put her on a chilling collision course with several pedophiles, a couple of serial killers and a specter from the past. Mila is called into an extensive investigation following the grisly discovery of six severed left arms in connection with a series of missing young girls. Following the arrest of a man too “clean” to be true, the investigating team uncovers an internet ring devoted to putting predator and victim together. Although it is tempting to pin the girl’s murder on him, it soon becomes clear he is only a small part of an elaborate plan set into motion by a master criminal.

Forensic evidence leads the conflicted team to conclude one of the victims is still alive but unless they can unravel the complex trail of clues in time, the young girl will surely die as a result of the amputation. What few could have foreseen was the involvement of those closest to the investigation and the scope of a whisperer.

While Carrisi’s creepy psychological thriller features well developed characters and a compelling storyline, it relies too heavily on numerous coincidences to be plausible. That said, this is still a chilling read with a few parallels to Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon. As a child abduction survivor, Mila remains tormented by black memories of her imprisonment and those memories have shaped the person she became. Her insights and those of the criminologist working the case are interesting to watch but again, there are just too many coincidences.