Alex North

The Whisper Man borrows its horror from a nursery rhyme and from a father and son who have moved to a town where a child abductor operated twenty years earlier.

North is a pen name for a British crime writer with a long backlist under another name, which explains why the first book under it arrived fully formed.

The Shadow Friend and The Angel Maker followed, and each one bends slightly further out of realism without ever fully committing, which is either the appeal or the frustration.