From a Whisper to a Scream (Key Books) (Paperback)

by Charles de Lint (Author) "Thomas Morningstar was on traffic duty that month..." (more)
Key Phrases: nightmare man, midnight man, midnight wind, Billy Ryan, Mickey Flynn, Teddy Bird (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this reissue of the versatile de Lint's (The Onion Girl) second "Samuel M. Key" novel, a darker take on his typically upbeat urban fantasies, a serial killer with a supernatural pedigree upsets the peaceful order of the city of Newford. Newspaper photographer Jim McGann stumbles on the first clues to the killer's identity when he spots the same young girl and a graffiti scrawl reading "Niki" in the background of crime scene photos for a succession of murdered teenage hookers. McGann's search for the elusive Niki dovetails with the investigations of homicide detective Thomas Morningstar, who spots unbelievable similarities between the crimes and the handiwork of Teddy Bird, a child killer whom he gunned down two years before. In the course of establishing that Bird's malignant spirit is alive and pursuing the terrified Niki for a reason, de Lint offers the reader some spectacularly horrific moments involving Creole voodoo, Native American mysticism and the strong-arm tactics of an Irish organized crime kingpin. The novel's central idea-that the killer is "the distilled essence of all that was wrong with the city"-is not terribly original, but it gives de Lint a unique angle from which to explore the social ills of the modern city and their impact on a cross-section of well-drawn characters. Fans who missed the book in 1992 will welcome this sidebar to his better known work.and Vines (1999).
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
“de Lint is as engaging a stylist as Stephen King, but considerably more inventive and ambitious.” --The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“There is no better writer now than Charles de Lint at bringing out the magic in contemporary life.” --Orson Scott Card
-- Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Orb Books (January 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765304341
• ISBN-13: 978-0765304346
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #615,768 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Whisper to a Scream By Samuel M Key (Charles DeLint), February 19, 2004

By	"fuzcat" (Ayer, MA United States) - See all my reviews

A Whisper to a Scream
By Samuel M Key (Charles DeLint)

This is Charles De Lint's first full length Newford Novel. He released it under the pen name of Samuel M Key, because of the dark tone to the story. I did not find that the tone of the story was much darker overall than most of his works, but the details are described in much more detail. This story also did not contain the balancing "light" supernatural entities, which usually balance the "dark" ones. This is a supernatural thriller.

Officer Thomas Morningstar assigned to the Slasher serial killer case. At first it seems straight forward, someone is killing prostitutes in Combat Zone (red light district of Newford). The problem is that no one has a clue who. The killer seems to literally come out of and disappear to nowhere. As the case continues he finds he must reevaluate his beliefs and the teachings he grew up with on the reservation. He finds that he must face his own heritage and his own past.

Photographer Jim McGann's hobby is taking photos of graffiti for a show he is hoping to put on. His day job is taking photos for the local paper, which has brought him to the murder scenes. While on the scene of the fourth murder he can't help but clicking a few frames of the graffiti at the site. Intuition causes him to take a few photos of a girl he sees there as well. Although he cannot explain why he believes there is a connection between the girl, the graffiti and the murders. Not really having any evidence be begins a quest to find the girl.

The two stories slowly come together. Adding in the Irish mob, Creole voodoo practitioners and friends they meet along the way. Culminating, as such a story must, with the battle against the Slasher.

Overall I found this to be a well written, engrossing story. The end was a bit of a let down, but I don't know that I have seen it handled better elsewhere. Things happened much the story line indicated, saving a few last minute twists for the end.

This story was definitely a "I can't put it down book", but I still felt left a bit of an unsatisfied feeling at the end.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars reprint of an early much darker Newford novel, January 18, 2003

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In 1988 Newford police officer Thomas Morningstar chases after a speeder only to have the other driver pull a gun on him forcing the cop to fire and kill the man. The follow up investigation exonerates Thomas, but also shows the victim is pediophile Teddy Bird, who had three dead little kids in his trunk and several others in his apartment. Thomas eliminated a monster.

Two years later, Thomas believes a new serial killer targeting teenage prostitutes displays a similar MO to Bird. Since he personally saw Bird buried, Thomas wonders what is going on, but turns to his Native American heritage for the answer. Jumping off of conclusions drawn by a reporter, Thomas believes that Bird's malignant spirit is chasing after someone named Niki, but not sure why. Having stopped Bird when he was human, Thomas feels it is his responsibility to halt Teddy now that that he is as deadly as ever as a spirit.

This is a reprint of an early much darker Newford novel written under the pen name Samuel M. Key. The story line contains all the de Lint magic that makes him a fan favorite as the author in this case uses a malevolent essence as a form of symbolism to display the uglier side of modern society. The paranormal serial killer investigation is intriguing as Mr. de Lint provides his audience with a deep mystical thriller with an even deeper message.

Harriet Klausner

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Humanly dark, June 16, 2003

By	Daniel J. Smitherman "phenomenologist" (Missoula, MT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The action happens at night, in places called the Tombs and the Combat Zone. Amongst deserted streets and crumbling, abandoned buildings, we meet folks whose lives are lived out in the nighttime hours - a newspaper photographer, a mafia henchman, a homicide detective, a runaway. Charles de Lint paints a dark picture in  "From A Whisper To A Scream."

The depths and mysteries of voodoo, and our own childhood play the nastiest tricks in a story that tells of runaway Chelsea's impending and violent encounter with her father and her past -thought to have died years before. Brought into the tale is Jim McGann, photographer for a city newspaper. His camera lens, and his need to make aesthetic, if not logical, sense of what's there lead him through life. In this violent and dark story, "what's there" is the appearance of graffiti near several brutal murder scenes that states simply "Niki."

One of the city police detectives working to find the murderer is Thomas Morningstar, a Native American who seemingly has grown out of the milieu of his heritage. He's left the reservation for the city, and left the ancestral spirits for cool, informal logic and formal police procedure. In the course of the investigation, Thomas Morningstar meets with a voodoo priest, and is invited back to the reservation to speak with the tribal shaman, both of whom intimate that spiritual forces are involved in the goings-on in the Zone.

Pulling all of these people together is the increasingly alarming, strange series of murders in the Zone. All four victims were blonde, teenage women, three of them hookers. A witness to the fourth murder gives a consistent, but very puzzling description of the attack. Jim McGann identifies the same woman in several photographs he's taken of the crime scenes and crowd shots of several of the murder scenes. By chance Jim comes across Chelsea. We quickly learn that Chelsea knows, like the voodoo priest, that spiritual forces are involved; in fact, she's convinced that she knows the identity of those forces, and she's terrified.

Charles de Lint draws a circle of new characters into the story in each of the first four chapters, and the growing list, twists of plot and sorting out of voices kept me busy. Then through the next half or more of the story, the unfolding of the central murder mystery kept me hooked. De Lint achieves a consistency and logically satisfying development of most of the characters. This, and not the plot development, is the most deeply satisfying aspect of the story. In spite of some weak narrative and rhetorical devices (in one place, he introduces a character's flashback with "He could remember a day..." - ellipsis included), his characters do come through looking and behaving in ways consistent with the tone and logic of the story. The fate of Ryan, mafia henchman, I thought was especially well developed in this regard.

I am rather surprised that the most frightening, aspects of the story are more psychological than spiritual or magical in nature. The reality of the vulnerability of children and women in our world is grim and saddening, beyond tales of the supernatural. De Lint feels this, and pens his most graphic and disturbing passages and dialogue in this vein. For the sake of the story, the supernatural elements are entertaining, but most so when in the service of the deeper emotional and psychological mysteries and tragedies of modern life. "From A Whisper To A Scream" is a gritty, dark, but satisfying story of the violence not so much of the city, but of human relationships, and the potential for affection and compassion.