Book info

• Title Whistle
• Author Linwood Barclay
• Year 2025
• Genre Horror

Evil has a one track mind... Celebrated children’s author and illustrator Annie Blunt has had a dreadful year. Her husband was killed in a tragic accident, then one of her children’s books ignited a major scandal. Desperate for a fresh start, she moves with her young son Charlie to a charming small town in upstate New York where they can begin to heal. But Annie’s year is about to get worse. Bored and lonely in their isolated new surroundings, Charlie is thrilled when he finds a forgotten train set in a locked shed in the grounds of their new house. While Annie is pleased to see Charlie happy, there’s something unsettling about his new toy. Strange sounds wake Annie in the night – she’s sure she can hear a train in the middle of the night, although there isn’t an active line for miles. And then bizarre things start happening in the neighbourhood. But even stranger, Annie can’t seem to stop drawing a disturbing new character that has no place in a children’s book... Grief plays tricks on the mind, but Annie is beginning to think she’s walked out of one nightmare straight into another, only this one is far more terrifying...

Thoughts

I’ve been getting into the Stephen King and Linwood Barclay horror books recently, and this one also featured model trains so it was definitely going to get picked up. I quite enjoyed it, although it was very, very slow to get moving. A bit like a model train, it started off slow and ramped up and up to get to a thrilling conclusion. The big bad was slightly odd, it sort of felt like the author wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but the concept was enough to propel the story. I liked it!

Rating: 4 / 5