Whistle by Linwood Barclay

 

This is a kinda paint-by-numbers Horror novel, competently written on at least most levels--the prose is solid and even occasionally sparkles, the characters feel human and kinda lived in--but it kinda feels like a Horror novel written by someone who doesn't read a whole lot of Horror, and probably hasn't written much. Horror does kinda abut Thriller (Barclay's primary thing, I think) as demonstrated by Koryta at least--there are probably others I'm whiffing on--but this isn't really all that great a Horror novel. It feels at points like an extended homage to King's Needful Things, though with less of turning the town so explicitly against itself. Well, except for the fact it's in two timelines, which isn't at all clear from the text itself: You need to pay close attention to get that one timeline is happening approximately now (2025) and the other is happening in late 2001 (I think, it's never really clear). For a while I thought Barclay was playing games about communications and availability of information, but he just wanted some separation, probably because he wanted to say something about lingering bad vibes or something. I'm very distinctly underwhelmed, here, but I might look into one of the Thrillers Barclay's written, just to see how he does on turf he's more familiar with.