My Readers Guide for The Whisper Man by Alex North has a character list, plot summary, spoilers, FAQ AND details about the August 28 Netflix adaptation! Whether you’ve read this and need a refresher or want to know what the book’s about, this post is for you!
Readers Guide for The Whisper Man by Alex North
You can also check out:
My Spoiler Post for The Angel Maker by Alex North AND
My Readers Guide for The Man Made of Smoke, Alex North’s latest!
Table of Contents
- Readers Guide for The Whisper Man by Alex North
Character List for The Whisper Man (book)
- Tom Kennedy: a single dad and widower
- Jake Kennedy: Tom’s son
- Rebecca Kennedy: Tom’s late wife
- Sally: Tom’s mother
- Inspector Pete Willis: struggling with his sobriety
- Detective Inspector Amanda Beck
- Detective Chief Inspector Colin Lyons
- Frank Carter: serial killer 20 years ago; now in prison
- Roger Hill: Frank’s first victim
- Tony Smith: Frank’s final victim
- Neil Spencer: young boy who disappears in the present
- Dominic Barnett: former resident of Tom’s new house; dead
- Julian Simpson: tenant of the house before Barnett
- Norman Collins: creepy guy Tom wants to investigate
- Victor Tyler: an inmate at the same prison as Frank
- Karen Shaw: fellow parent at Jake school who befriends Tom
Character List for The Whisper Man (movie)
This list (from IMDB) seems incomplete and I’ll fill it in ASAP
- Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott)
- Detective Pete Willis (Robert DeNiro)
- Detective Amanda Beck (Michelle Monaghan)
- Frank Carter (Michael Keaton)
- Jake Kennedy
- Rebecca Kennedy
- Dominic Barrett
Plot Summary for The Whisper Man
The Whisper Man by Alex North was published in August 2019 by Celadon Books. Thanks to the publisher for the finished copy!
Part One: July
In the village of Featherbank, a man is stalking six year-old Neil Spencer. The man knows that Neil’s parents are separated, and that his father is an alcoholic.
Inspector Pete Willis is looking for Neil Spencer. Neil was reported missing at 7:39 PM, when he was an hour late arriving at his father’s house. They’ve searched everywhere and Pete isn’t sure he’ll be found.
Jake’s father Tom comes to pick him up from an afterschool program. Jake waves goodbye to an imaginary friend at an empty table. Jake’s mother Rebecca died ten months ago. His mother wasn’t feeling well, so Tom picked him up from school. At home, they found Rebecca lying at the bottom of the stairs. For a fresh start, they moved into a new home in Featherbank.
Detective Amanda Beck is also searching for Neil Spencer. Something Neil’s mother says makes her think of Frank Carter, the Whisper Man, who is currently in prison for kidnapping and murdering five young boys in Featherbank.
Pete Willis, consumed by dark thoughts, is trying not to drink. DCI Lyons tells him that Frank Carter will only talk to Pete.
Neil’s kidnapping has re-raised a theory that Carter had an accomplice. Neil’s mother said that her son saw “a monster” outside the window who had been whispering to him.
Part Two: September
Jake and Tom move into their new house. Jake draws a picture of a girl playing in his room with him, and tells Tom that “if he leaves the door open, soon he’ll hear the whisper spoken.”
Pete thinks of Miranda and Alan Smith. When Carter was arrested, there was evidence that their son Tony Smith had been in Carter’s van, but Tony was never found. Neil Spencer has been missing for two months.
Tom has a nightmare of his mother screaming. Jake comes in and ask if he can sleep in his dad’s bed because there’s a monster outside his window, whispering.
Tom takes a picture of Jake on his first day of school. When he gets home he sees a grey haired man standing in the back garden. The man says he used to live in the house and wants to come in. Tom says no, and then looks in his detached garage and finds a bunch of old junk and some butterflies.
Pete visits Carter at the prison
Carter doesn’t tell him where Tony or Neil are, but just says cryptic things like “it always ends where it starts” and “they might be interested in the whispers.” Carter says he’ll tell Pete more if Pete brings his wife and son to visit.
Amanda asks Pete to talk her through the accomplice theory: a witness saw an older man with gray hair, a man who doesn’t match Carter’s description, talking to Tony Smith. Pete says there must be a reason that Carter wanted to see him
Jake’s imaginary friend asks her him to tell her the rhyme:
If you leave a door half open soon you’ll hear the whisper spoken. If you play outside alone, soon you won’t be going home. If your window’s left unlatched, you’ll hear him tapping at the glass. If you’re lonely, sad and blue, the Whisper Man will come for you.
Jake finds out that he’s sitting in the seat of a missing boy named Neil.
Tom picks up Jake from school and learns from Karen, a fellow parent, that he and Jake moved into the “scary house.” When they get home, Tom hears Jake talking to somebody else and notices he’s been drawing butterflies.
Neil’s body is found. He was killed elsewhere and dumped.
Tom wakes up after having a nightmare and hears someone whispering: a voice is asking Jake to let him inside the house. Jake opened the door, but the man runs away.
Part Three
The police arrive at Tom’s house. Jake says he didn’t see the whispering man. The next day at school drop-off, Karen asks about Jake’s imaginary friend. Tom says he also had an imaginary friend called Mr. Knight. He starts researching Dominic Barnett, and finds a newspaper article that claims Barnett died of a head injury.
Amanda looks into a man named Victor Tyler, another child murderer who is friends with Carter. She wants to look into a man named Norman Collins who went to visit Tyler.
Tom asks the prior owner of his house about her previous tenants. She said a man made a higher offer on the house, but the he gave her bad vibes. The man was short with gray hair: Norman Collins.
Tom wonders why Norman Collins was snooping around his house. He goes back and looks in the garage and finds covered-up mechanics pit with a box of bones inside it.
Pete’s interview with Norman Collins
Pete goes to talk to Norman Collins. Collins has alibis for the murders, but says he visited Tyler to discuss the murder Tyler committed. Collins also has a devil mask worn by a notorious murder. Amanda tells Pete to arrest Collins.
The police search Collins’s home. He continues to claim he did nothing wrong. Pete researches the history of the house where Tony’s remains were found. He focuses on two people: Julian Simpson, who was renting the property when Frank Carter committed his murders and a man named Dominic Barnett, who rented it immediately after. He remembers that Barnett was a minor figure in the drug scene who had turned up dead.
Could Julian Simpson have been Carter’s accomplice? Could Frank Carter have dropped Tony off at Simpson‘s house because he knew his own house was being searched.
Amanda calls to update Peter on the remains. Pete recognizes the name of the owner of the house: Tom Kennedy
Jake asks his father if they found the boy he’s been talking to. Tom tries to tell Jake that he imagined it, which upsets him. It’s obvious to Tom that Pete recognizes him.
Jake gets in trouble at school for hitting Owen, who tried to touch Jake’s “Packet of Special Things.” Jake is in the police station talking to Pete asked him if there’s anyone they can stay with. When Tom says no, they offer him a safe house.
Amanda interviews Norman Collins
Collins says he went to visit Victor Tyler because he’s interested in violent crime. They did not discuss Frank Carter nor did he know that Tyler and Carter are friends. Collins has a solid alibi for the time Spencer was abducted, but Amanda is certain he’s involved somehow.
Collins denies trying to break into Tom Kennedy’s garage and says he was nowhere near the house at all. When Amanda tells him his fingerprints were found on the hammer used to murder Dominic Barnett, he asks for a lawyer.
Tom is still reeling from seeing Pete Willis again: Pete is Tom’s biological father and Jake’s grandfather. The last time he saw Pete, he was drunk and threw a glass at Tom’s mother.
Part Four
Karen invites Tom out for coffee. Tom tells her about the remains he found and that he thinks Norman Collins might have been Carter’s accomplice.
A man is spying on Tom and Karen at the coffee shop. He thinks Jake would be better off with him. He’s the one who killed Neil Spencer. He has no idea who Norman Collins is.
Pete goes to Tony Smith’s autopsy. He asks the corner about the butterflies. They are corpse moths: butterflies attracted to decaying flesh.
Collins is willing to admit to the murder of Dominic Barnett, but denies any involvement in Neil Spencer’s murder. According to Collins, he’s a “true crime collector” who is interested in Carter’s crimes. He was offered the chance to “spend time” with Tony Smith. He paid money to Victor Tyler’s wife and was directed to the house of Julian Simpson.
Simpson brought out a cardboard box with the remains of Tony and Collins paid his respects. Dominic Barnett took over selling access, and the last night that he went, there were five or six other people there. Collins killed Barnett because Barnett stopped giving him access to the bones.
Amanda and Pete discuss what Collins said. Pete says they called the perpetrator the “Whisper Man” because of Roger Hill, Carter’s first victim. Roger told his father that he heard a man whispering outside the window.
Amanda is certain that somebody was Carter’s student and she wants to find them.
Pete Willis shows up at Tom’s door. He says that Tom and Jake can return home and that Norman Collins has been charged with the murder of Dominic Barnett.
Pete tells Tom that he stopped drinking. He also says that the night he threw a glass at Tom’s mother, Tom was at a sleepover with a friend.
Tom remembers an imaginary friend named Mr. Knight who would come into his bedroom and hug him when he was sleeping.
The next morning when Tom is takes Jake to their house before school, he’s confronted by a crowd of reporters, including … Karen.
Pete talks to Frank Carter again
Pete asks Frank about Victor Tyler. Carter knew about people visiting Tony’s bones.
When Pete shows Carter pictures of all Tyler’s prison visitors, Carter says he doesn’t recognize the photo of Norman Collins. But when Pete shows Carter a photo of a man who identified himself as Liam Adams, Carter won’t say anything.
Pete tells Amanda that Carter definitely knows something about Liam Adams. Amanda asks Pete to repeat what Carter said: “it always ends where it starts.”They discuss the fact that Carter never wanted to see the faces of his victims. He always pulled their shirts over their heads, and there was no sexual element to the murders.
Carter had also said, “all the bastards are the same; anyone will do.” Pete immediately thinks of Carter’s son and the fact that Carter had asked his wife and son to visit.
Karen shows up at Tom’s door. Karen promises she won’t reveal anything he told her.
After Frank Carter’s trial, his wife and son, Francis, and moved away with new identities: Jane Parker and David Parker. Could Francis have been involved in the murders?
Tom invites Pete over to stay with Jake while he grabs a drink with Karen.
Jake is still afraid he sees his imaginary friend (a little girl) sitting beside him. She tells him that Jake’s father shouldn’t go out. Something bad is going to happen. Someone will replace his mother.
Amanda and her colleague Dyson are going to find David Parker a.k.a. Francis Carter. They head to his rental house. They knock on the door. The house is empty. She sees a painting on the wall.
Pete is tempted to reveal his connection to Jake but decides it’s not his place. He thinks about Francis Carter as a child, then he hears Jake screaming upstairs.
Jake remembers the day his mother died. His father came to pick him up from school and said his mother was feeling dizzy and decided to lie down. They go in the house and there’s something wrong. He screams.
In the present, Jake wakes up screaming for his father. He asks Pete to call Tom and ask him to come home. He hears the man whispering to him.
When Tom gets home, the front door is open and there’s blood at the bottom of the stairs. His father is lying on the ground, bleeding. Jake is missing.
Part Five
Amanda is at Tom’s house. Pete is unconscious at the hospital in critical condition, stabbed several times but still alive. The crime scene team is going through the house. Tom is in shock.
Amanda tells Tom that the police think they know who’s responsible for taking Neil and they will find Jake.
Amanda asked Tom why Pete was babysitting and then realizes that they are father and son.
Francis couldn’t save the boys he’d seen murdered, but instead he would find children to rescue and protect.
Jake wakes up in a strange room. His imaginary friend is with him. She says she’ll never leave him, but that he needs to be brave. She helps him look around the room. She helps him calm down when the man comes. She tells him to pretend to be asleep.
Tom also wakes up in a strange place: Karen’s living room. He knows he can find Jake. He decides it’s time to look in Jake’s Packet of Special Things.
Francis wakes up and thinks of the child upstairs. He hears the whispering again.
Inside Jake’s packet, Tom finds a bunch of trinkets. But he also finds a handwritten copy of the Whisper Man rhyme. Rebecca is the one who taught it to Jake. She would’ve been 13 when Frank Carter was killing people. He finds a photo of Rebecca as a child, standing in front of his son’s primary school. He didn’t realize Rebecca had lived in Featherbank. Then he opens the last piece of paper.
Tom shows up at the police station with a drawing of a butterfly. He thinks somebody gave it to Jake to copy. Amanda is dismissive, but Tom needs to figure out the significance of this drawing. He feels like Jake decided to keep it because they had had an argument. Tom goes to the school and finds out that the picture was drawn by George, one of the teaching assistants Tom begs them to give George’s address to the police. He runs into Karen outside who says she has George’s address.
Jake was copying the scene that Francis drew for him. The girl is nervous and doesn’t want him to draw. George comes into the room and says the drawing isn’t good enough and that Jake will have to be punished. But the doorbell rings.
Francis is upset. How did Tom find him?
Tom is shocked when “George” opens the door. He thinks George is too meek to be dangerous.
Jake is scared. The little girl wants to know about his nightmares the day his mother died.
Tom is wrong about George, who stabs him.
Amanda is looking into the primary school employees. She finds George Saunders, who’s about the right age. When she arrives at his house there are bodies on the floor, Karen kneeling on Francis Carter, and Jake yelling for his father.
Part Six
As Pete’s life flashes before his eyes, he remembers his abusive childhood
Two weeks later, Tom is out of the hospital and reading to Jake. Jake tells Tom that Tom’s father read him that same book when he was young.
Sadly, Pete died. Amanda cries for him. Her only comfort is that Jake Kennedy is safe and Francis Carter is in prison. Frank Carter wrote her a letter that said, “if Peter can still hear, tell him thank you.”
Francis is being kept in the same prison as his father. He hears footsteps approaching and a voice, whispering his name. Francis knows what to do. He pulls the bottom of his T-shirt over his face.
My Questions About The Whisper Man (and yours)
Do you have answers (or questions)? Leave them in the comments so we can discusss!
I believe he’s imagining that his mother Rebecca is with him. Jake had a picture of her as a child in his Packet of Special Things, and his imaginary friend resembles Rebecca as a child. It’s clear that he’s not ready to let Rebecca go, and imagining her as his friend probably helps him cope with his grief.
I have no answer? Anyone? Was Pete too drunk to remember this correctly?
Again, I don’t know. Does he feel guilty for what he realized his son did? Annoyed that Francis copied him?
In his POV, he claims he was concerned for them. He definitely picks Jake because he’s an outcast at his new school. Neil attended the same school, where “George” was a teaching assistant.
It seems like it? It was unclear to me whether Francis was also abused by his father as a child, or just traumatized by knowing what his father was up to.
Pete tells Tom that he thinks Tom and Jake are similar: both sensitive and imaginative. Tom was clearly traumatized by some incident with Pete, just as Jake was deeply traumatized by his mother’s death. I wonder if Mr. Knight was actually Pete, who came to visit his son now and then. What do you think?
I think so? He’s the right age to be Francis (late twenties to early thirties) and the right description (average looking, which is how both Pete and Tom describe him).
He says it was because he didn’t like the way that Barnett ran the viewing of Tony’s bones. He allowed too many people in, and they touched his bones.
At the Rose Terrace Primary School (the school both Neil and Jake attended) the walls were covered with students’ handprints and their attendance dates.