The Shadows by Alex North

Back to Featherbank. And thereabouts. Small town, creepy woods, so creepy they are colloquially referred to as The Shadows. Something tragic occurred there twenty five years ago. It left one kid dead, one in prison for murder, one mysteriously vanished and one with profound psychological scars. So much so that he hightailed it out of there as soon as he hit eighteen and never came back. Until now, until his dying mother made the visit no longer possible to postpone and the place no longer possible to ignore.
And so Paul Adams returns to town he has so gladly left behind years ago and just like that memories come back too. And more than that, threats, dangers, other dark secret things lurking in the shadows.
Featuring all the classic presets of a good King story (appropriately enough since Paul and his friend are such fans of his as kids), this starts off spookily enough with all sorts of supernatural ambiance, but then steadily veers off into thriller territory. Personally I kinda wanted it to go with the scary, but having read North’s previous book, knew to expect differently.
Weirdly enough, though I definitely read and enjoyed The Whisper Man and not that long ago, I managed to forget it quite thoroughly. Nothing about The Whispers rang a bell to me, not the recurring location, not the recurring detective, totally had to look all of that up in the official book descriptions just now. I literally just remembered liking the book. Meaning this one probably won’t stick to the walls of the memory palace either, but then again it doesn’t have to. It sufficed perfectly for the duration. North does a very good job in a genre that’s too popular and ubiquitous to exercise proper quality control, so his work stands out. The man writes genuinely thrilling thrillers. They are fun to read, exciting and, possibly best of all, unpredictable. Did I find the ending somewhat bathetic? Sure, yeah. But did it take away from the overall enjoyment of the novel? No, not really. I definitely had lot of fun with this one. Recommended.