The Whisperer [Hardcover]

Donato Carrisi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2012

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 found.

Lead investigators Mila Vasquez, a celebrated profiler, and Goran Gavila, an eerily prescient criminologist, dive into the case. They're confident they've got the right suspect in their sights until they discover no link between him and any of the kidnappings except the first. The evidence in the case of the second missing child points in a vastly different direction, creating more questions than it answers.

Vasquez and Gavila begin to wonder if they've been brought in to take the fall in a near-hopeless case. Is it all coincidence? Or is a copycat criminal at work? Obsessed with a case that becomes more tangled and intense as they unravel the layers of evil, Gavila and Vasquez find that their lives are increasingly in each other's hands.

THE WHISPERER, as sensational a bestseller in Europe as the Stieg Larsson novels, is that rare creation: a thought-provoking, intelligent thriller that is also utterly unputdownable.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"THE WHISPERER is one hell of a ride. This story screams high tension, high stakes and high velocity. Superb." (Michael Connelly )

"Brilliant and very creepy....a great book." (Ken Follett )

"Brutally awesome--Thomas Harris by way of Ian Rankin." (Will Lavender, New York Times bestselling author of Obedience and Dominance )

"Employs the graceful turns of phrase common to literary fiction ... Carrisi's villain is a suitable cohort for Hannibal Lecter, and his detectives are intelligently nuanced, each struggling, sometimes failing, to cope with the depravity into which they immerse themselves in the name of good. A haunting, disconcerting, devastating portrait of evil." (Kirkus Reviews )

"Exquisite. Readers who appreciate manipulation, both of plots and themselves, by the author, and those who appreciate a shock of bloody horror will be absolutely enthralled by this offering." (Library Journal (starred review) )

"A murder mystery. A puzzle. A challenge. An intriguing portrait of society, of you and me." (EDGE Boston )

"Donato Carrisi has a unique gift for blending fascinating forensic detail, mind-bending plot twists, and empathetic characters into a seamless, powerful narrative. THE WHISPERER intrigues, informs, and haunts simultaneously, a novel that will linger in the mind long after you've finished." (Michael Koryta )

"Intricate plotting. Major surprises. THE WHISPERER has already won several literary awards and have been a bestseller all over Europe. I predict no less for it here." (BookPage )

"Intriguing ... an engagingly gruesome tale." (Publishers Weekly )

"More than delivers on its ghoulish promise...you might not want to read this alone in the house." (Time Out London )

"I defy anyone to guess the denouement." (The Guardian (UK) )

"Gripping, multi-layered and difficult to put down ... a top class literary thriller." (Choice (UK) )

"Full of original, unexpected twists, where haunters become haunted, a thriller which is simply enthralling, intelligent and fascinating ... a real treat for thriller fans." (Waldeckische Landeszeitung (Germany) )

"Enthralling." (Cellesche Zeitung (Germany) )

"Astonishing." (Il Messaggero (Italy) )

"Unmissable." (Diário Digital (Portugal) )

About the Author

Donato Carrisi studied law and criminology before he began working as a writer for television. THE WHISPERER, Carrisi's first novel, won five international literary prizes, has been sold in nearly twenty countries, and has been translated into languages as varied as French, Danish, Hebrew and Vietnamese. Carrisi lives in Rome.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Mulholland Books; 1 edition (January 5, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316194727
• ISBN-13: 978-0316194723
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #856,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Scarier than Hannibal Lecter July 28, 2010

By Barbara Farrelly

Format:Paperback

Not since The Silence of the Lambs have I been so scared reading a thriller. No wonder Donato Carrisi has become an overnight sensation in Italy as this gripping, gruesome yarn captivates the rest of the world.
If I may digress for a moment to an unlikely comparison between The Whisperer and Curtain, Poirot's Last Case, which Agatha Christie locked in a vault for over 30 years. The murderer, identified by Poirot simply by the letter X, has been completely unsuspected of involvement in five previous murders, in all of which there was a clear suspect. X had perfected the technique of which Iago in Othello is master: applying just such psychological pressure as is needed to provoke someone to commit murder.
Now to the Whisperer. Six buried arms. Six missing girls. Writing so vivid you will gasp in horror at night and by day turn over and over in your mind the nature of good and evil.
Carrisi, a screenwriter, has created fully realized and utterly compelling characters in the child-finding specialist Mila Vasquez with her dark secrets and renowned criminologist Goran Gavila, reeling in pain after his wife packed up and left him to raise their son alone. The evil-doers beggar belief yet they are out there as we all know. Waiting, watching, pouncing.
This book has a very high IQ. You will never guess where it will take you. But as Mila says, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that the darkness calls to you, it seduces you with its pull. And it's hard to resist the temptation.
"When I come out with the person I've rescued, Mila says, "I'm aware that we are not alone. There's always something else that comes with us out of that black hole, stuck to our shoes...."
Every now and then I am reminded of what literary crime fiction means and how cinema can only dream of going such places.
Very highly recommended. Read more ›

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Scary thriller, up to a point. September 30, 2010

By bradjanet

Format:Kindle Edition

I went along with this gruesome and exciting thriller until it brought in a deus ex machina in the form of a psychic nun, when it started to lose me. Then, in the final chapters, in the midst of a welter of twists and revelations, only one of which really worked for me, the book unravelled and I was no longer able to suspend disbelief. It had tried to be too clever for its own good and had just missed the mark.

The book's major conceit, a criminal who is able to plant ideas and suggestion in people minds, is not as original as it might seem ... it has been used, not only by Agatha Christie, many years ago, but it turned up in an episode of the light-weight British crime show for TV., "New Tricks".

"The Whisperer" also seemed to telegraph its punchline that some of the evil-doers would have to be very close to home.

It's good, however, for a few creepy, undemanding hours tucked up in bed.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Newcomer Carrisi revitalizes the serial killer genre January 15, 2012

By Susan Tunis TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

There are few things in life my mother loves more than a good psycho-killer novel. And because I grew up reading what she did, I was raised on the things. It took me well into adulthood before I realized that I really don't like reading about nightmare killers. It's depressing and unpleasant. To each his own, right?

I'm not sure what it was about this novel's description that inspired me to want to pick it up. It must have been the typical publisher hyperbole. I fell for it again. Except, this time the hype was right. It's not my usual cup of tea, but The Whisperer was a fantastic crime novel.

The novel opens with a prologue made up of the first of several redacted pieces of correspondence from a prison director about an inmate who was arrested for not sharing his identity, and who appears to be obsessively collecting all trace DNA he may be leaving around the prison. They suspect he may be guilty of far more serious crimes.

The first chapter drops us in the middle of an English crime scene. There's been a rash of abductions of young girls. The entire country is in a panic. Parents are pulling children out of school. As the novel opens, there has been a grisly find. A collection of arms, surely belonging to the missing girls. Only one problem, five children have been snatched, and there are six arms. Who is the sixth victim, and is she still alive?

Enter the novel's protagonist in chapter two. Mila Vasquez is not a member of the elite serial killer-hunting team that's been working this case. She's on loan from another part of the country. She specializes in finding missing children, and she never stops looking.... It becomes apparent almost immediate that Mila isn't your average woman:

"She couldn't even bear to see her image reflected in a mirror. Not because she wasn't beautiful, quite the contrary. But at the age of thirty-two, hours and hours of training had stripped her of every trace of femininity. Every curve, every hint of softness. As if being a woman were an evil to be eradicated. Even though she often wore male clothes, she wasn't masculine. There was simply nothing about her that suggested a sexual identity. And that was how she wanted to appear... Invisible among the invisible."

So, yes, it's clear she's not your average woman, but it takes the reader a while to realize just how different she is. Let the comparisons to Lisbeth Salandar begin!

In any case, Mila is an intriguing, if not always a relatable, central character. Additionally, the other members of her new team keep things lively. Aside from the rich ensemble cast, the novel is intricately and very smartly plotted. Author Carrisi does an admirable job of avoiding genre clichés. Hats off to him for flat-out flummoxing me more than once. Great plot twists! And on a creepiness scale of 1-10, this book rates an 11. If this is your cup of tea, don't hesitate to pick The Whisperer up. I can't wait to recommend it to Mom! Read more ›

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointing January 16, 2012

By kevnm VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I don't think I'll ever forgive Michael Connelly for providing a positive blurb for this book. However modest that novelist's literary aspirations, he's a master at the architecture of popular crime fiction. This overstuffed mess, by comparison, is a disjointed and meandering slog that reads as if each chapter were written by a different person, jerking the plot this way and that, each seeing the characters in a different light, fighting over where the story was headed. Riddled with inconsistencies, filled with scenes and dialog that are stunningly incompetent, this is one of the worst books I've read in a long time. I'm embarrassed that I finished it.