Chilling Books to Read While You Wait for ‘The Whisper Man’ Movie

You know what they say: The book is always better! If you’re new to North’s thrilling books, now is the ideal time to check out the source material for the upcoming adaptation. The Whisper Man is a chilling story of a father and his son who get tangled up in the web of an otherworldly evil. Twenty years ago, a serial killer called the Whisper Man terrorized the small town of Featherbank, luring his victims to their deaths by whispering outside their windows. Tom, a recent widower, hopes that this darkness is in the past and that Featherbank will offer a new beginning for him and his son, Jake. But when a boy vanishes under eerily familiar circumstances, just like the long-ago murders, rumors swirl that the Whisper Man had an accomplice. As the situation intensifies, Tom struggles to keep his composure — and then Jake starts hearing strange sounds outside his window…

An instant New York Times bestseller, North’s thrilling novel “works beautifully… If you like being terrified, The Whisper Man has your name on it” (The New York Times, Editor’s Pick). For more chills in North’s compelling voice, check out The Shadows, The Angel Maker, and his most recent work, The Man Made of Smoke.

If you’re entranced by the creeping dread and small-town atmosphere of The Whisper Man, then be sure to check out Granite Harbor, Peter Nichols’s tense serial killer thriller set against the backdrop of Maine. Granite Harbor embodies northeastern coastal beauty. Its peace is shattered, however, when a teen is found brutally murdered at the town’s nearby archeological site. Single dad Alex is the town’s only detective, and along with another single parent, Isabel, he’s determined to get to the bottom of this horrifying case. After a second teen is killed, Alex and Isabel race to protect their children from becoming the next victims.

An instant New York Times bestseller, Middle of the Night by thriller author Riley Sager finds Ethan Marsh returning to the suburban New Jersey neighborhood of his youth to unravel a sinister mystery. Thirty years ago, 10-year-old Ethan and his best friend Billy were backyard camping on the lawn when someone sliced open the tent in the middle of the night and took Billy away. Thirty years later, Billy’s remains are found on the grounds of a nearby research facility that they both explored as kids. As Ethan searches the neighborhood for answers, he sees signs of Billy everywhere and begins venturing into the woods that Billy claimed were haunted. Small-town frights meet ’90s summer horror nostalgia in this twisty thriller with a satisfying touch of the supernatural.

Eight-year-old Bela loves her family — Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But then there’s Other Mommy. And Other Mommy is getting impatient. In Josh Malerman’s chilling Incidents Around the House, a hostile spirit haunts the home of a troubled family, preying on the cracks in their relationships. They’ll need each other to survive, but Other Mommy just might be their undoing.

Simone St. James “deftly melds an engrossing mystery with a tense supernatural thriller” (Associated Press) in her New York Times bestseller The Sun Down Motel. Fell, New York, 1982: A night clerk goes missing from her place of work, the Sun Down Motel. Decades later, the missing woman’s niece, Carly Kirk, moves to town. Carly is determined to find out what happened to her aunt Viv all those years ago. Turns out, not much has changed about the roadside motel since the 1980s — and something really isn’t right about this place. 

Stephen King recommends this creepy thriller by Jason Rekulak, so you know it’s got to be good. Hidden Pictures centers on Mallory, whose new nannying job takes a troubling turn after her 5-year-old charge, Teddy, begins to draw disturbing scenes. Teddy starts off sketching the usual stuff — simple trees and animals. But then, one day, he draws a man dragging a dead woman through the forest. As the pictures become more graphic and Teddy’s art skills grow increasingly mature, Mallory feels certain there’s something supernatural at play. So, she sets out to save Teddy and maybe solve a murder, too. 

Paul Tremblay brilliantly blends the paranormal with psychological horror in his Stoker Award–winning novel, A Head Full of Ghosts. Fourteen-year-old Marjorie is either unwell or possessed — either way, it’s thrown her suburban family’s life into upheaval. Overwhelmed by medical bills and desperate for answers, her parents agree to let a production company turn their nightmare into a TV show at the suggestion of the Catholic priest they’d contacted for help. Fifteen years later, Marjorie’s younger sister Merry talks to a writer about the experience and the trauma of witnessing her sister’s demons — whether figurative or literal, they left their mark.

A childhood game takes a deadly turn in The Chalk Man, C. J. Tudor’s delightfully creepy thriller. In 1986, Eddie and his friends used stick-figure chalk drawings to create secret messages and leave clues around town. But when one of the chalk drawings leads the boys to a girl’s body in the woods, the game becomes disturbing. Thirty years later, Eddie spends his days drinking to forget the problems from his past. But when he and the other boys receive letters inscribed with that familiar chalk man figure, they know they’ll have to figure out what really happened all those years ago.

In 1908, Sara Harrison Shea was found dead behind her farmhouse in West Hall, Vermont, just months after losing her young daughter. Decades later, 19-year-old Ruthie, her younger sister, and their mother, Alice, live in the home that was once Sara’s, entirely off the grid at Alice’s insistence. When Alice goes missing, Ruthie’s search for her mom turns up Sara’s old diary that was hidden in the house. Suddenly Ruthie’s caught up in multiple-timeline mysteries — one in the present, the other long past. Ghostly and atmospheric, Jennifer McMahon’s The Winter People is a chilling suspense book that you won’t be able to put down: “Crisp, mysterious and scary” (USA Today).

Luke Ellis is 12 years old, and he’s a genius. One night, his parents are murdered in their home and Luke is abducted. He wakes up in a copy of his bedroom — minus the window — in a hallway full of rooms with other kids. This is The Institute. The kids here are special; they have powers, and if they go along with the staff’s instructions, they’re rewarded. If they don’t, though, the punishments are harsh. As more and more kids graduate to what the staff call “Back Half,” Luke gets increasingly desperate to escape. Blending the black-ops sci-fi thrills of Firestarter with the kids-versus-evil chills of It, The Institute is horror author Stephen King at his best.

Six teenage girls go missing over the course of one summer in a small Louisiana town. Chloe, just 12 years old at the time, watches the frightening case unfold — and then witnesses her father confess to the crimes and get sentenced to life in prison. For two decades, she grapples with the trauma, eventually becoming a psychologist for troubled teens. When a local girl disappears, Chloe is flooded with memories of that summer. Is it happening again? Or is she seeing connections that aren’t real? Stacy Willingham’s A Flicker in the Dark is smart, surprising, and led by a compellingly haunted protagonist.