I would like to thank Netgalley and Penguin UK - Michael Joseph for an advance copy of The Shadow Friend, a stand-alone set in the fictional English town of Gritten.

Paul Adams returns to Gritten for the first time in 25 years because his mother is dying. He left Gritten and never went back after the murder of his friend. One classmate was caught and convicted but the other, Charlie Crabtree, disappeared and was never seen again. Now Detective Amanda Beck is interested in speaking to Paul because she is investigating a copycat murder and Charlie appears to be involved.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Shadow Friend which is a tense, atmospheric read with some good twists and a hint of the supernatural. It requires a certain amount of concentration as it has both a dual narrative and timeline. Most of it is Paul’s first person story as he switches between the present day and the events of twenty five years ago while Amanda’s third person narrative adds a touch of objectivity to current events. Both stories are compulsive as Paul slowly unfolds the events leading up to the old murder and deals with some strange present day events. Somehow they get intertwined without losing their own thread. Amanda provides the objectivity, continuity and a framework for the reader to follow.

Fortunately there is not too much supernatural in the novel as it’s not my thing and there is always a rational explanation for events if the reader wants to grasp it. I guess it’s all a bit ambiguous, especially the lucid dreaming that plays such a central role in the original murder. It’s an interesting concept, especially in a group setting. I loved the explanation but struggled with the idea of a 15 year old boy having the sophistication to pull it off.

Above all the novel is atmospheric with a sense of suspense and dread permeating the read. I never knew what was coming next - and there are a couple of epic twists - but I just knew it was going to be bad. I even found myself putting the book down a couple of times to regroup before ploughing on, so yes, it’s that tense.

Perhaps on a more literary level this is a novel about a man coming to terms with his past. The rather mushy conclusion certainly suggests that but it flies in the face of all that has gone before.

The Shadow Friend is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

I was beyond excited to get approved for this, after loving The Whisper Man.
This was not what I expected. Confusing perspectives, time frame and plot made it so I was 16% in before I really had any idea what was happening.
Lucid dreams is a really interesting concept to me and I have often wondered about this in reality.
I think the arrangement of the book (time frame and perspective) could have been made much clearer.

This is not a book for anyone who is afraid of the dark or finds dark woods creepy. If you're already at that point, this book may push you over the edge!

There are two timelines in the story. As an adult, Paul returns to the village where he lived as a child, because his mother is dying. His return is uncomfortable, bringing back difficult memories and almost the first words his mum says to him are 'you should not be here' Gradually the memories of Paul's childhood are revealed including the disturbing recollections of dabbling in lucid dreams. The experiments in controlling lucid dreams resulted in a murder and now in the adult timeline, it appears that there has been a copycat murder.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It's well written and fast paced. It has complexities but is not difficult to follow. But there are surprises along the way. The childhood murder is revealed early on in the book, but who is murdered is not clear. It wasn't who I thought at all. Great twist.

Thank you to NetGalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Twenty five years ago Paul’s friend Charlie brutally killed their classmate and then vanished without a trace. Paul has never forgiven himself for the part in which he played, so left home and hasn’t been back since. But now his mum has had a fall and now it’s time to stop running. It’s not long though till things start to go wrong again. He needs to find out once and for all - what happened to Charlie on the day of the murder?

Another creepy story by Alex North. It is full of suspense and written well although I found it to be a little slow going at times.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher Penguin UK for ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is the second book I’ve read from Alex North.
The first, The Whisper Man, I absolutely loved... I devoured it in just a couple of days.
And while this is was a dark, creepy story, which was a good, easy read... it didn’t quite grab me in the same way The first book did.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley, for allowing me to read in return for an honest review.

I was looking forward to this having loved The Whisper Man but i was very disappointed. I found the time lines confusing and just too many characters to try and think about that's without the absurd lucid dream.. To weird and far fetched for me.

Paul Adams has returned to the town where he grew up as his mother is dying. He hasn’t been back since he left to go to university. Twenty five years ago, when he was 15, two of Paul’s school friends, Charlie Campbell and Billy Roberts, killed another of his friends and he’s felt guilty about not being able to stop it ever since. Detective Amanda Beck travels to Gritten after reading about the case following the murder of a teenage boy. The boys arrested were very interested in the Campbell and Roberts case especially as Campbell was never caught. The school of thought on Internet forums is that he is still alive. After Paul’s return strange things start happening which link directly to the time of the murder; he also finds that his mother had been following other similar cases in the news.

Absolutely fantastic read. Gripped me from the first chapter and several twists and turns to keep you guessing right to the end.

Thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Random House and Alex North for the ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. If you want a thriller with twists and turns and great characters you will really enjoy this book. I loved it. Alex North is becoming one of my favourite authors.

Paul’s mother is very ill and he goes back to his home town to visit her, he has not been home in twenty five years.
Sometime terrible happened when he was a schoolboy and a boy died. Paul has been hiding from his past since then.
I didn’t enjoy this book as much a The Whisper Man but I found it interesting.
Thank you to NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Having read Alex North’s previous thriller ‘The Whisper Man’, I knew I was in for a compelling, thrilling read, and wasn’t disappointed.

Due to his mother becoming ill, Paul reluctantly returns home for the first time in 25 years, visiting old haunts and meeting old friends. When visiting his mother she seems confused, muttering, ’it’s in the house’, but he is unsure about what she could be referring to. Staying in his old home, Paul feels tense and wary, and senses a threatening atmosphere, and starts searching through old paperwork though unsure what his mother could have been referring to, determined to find out.

Set in two timeframes, the story goes back to the murder of a child 25 years ago, and explores what happened at the time, along with a new crime being investigated at present by Detective Amanda Beck, which has similar characteristics to the original crime. Shifting between past and present, along with the current police investigation, this is a gripping, compulsive thriller which I found hard to put down.

Characters are well drawn and believable, with dark, graphic episodes as the story unfolds. This suspenseful, atmospheric thriller, with its gritty well-plotted storyline, along with unexpected twists and turns, along with strong well drawn characters make it a book not to be missed.

Recommended.

A great exciting second novel from Alex North. A disturbing storyline and a difficult subject to read. The way a historical murder plays out is fascinating and horrifying in equal measures. Copycat crimes over time make it even more difficult to piece together what really happened 25 years ago. The sadness and fear are palpable in every chapter. When all threads come together in the final chapters it all makes a strange and satisfying conclusion.
Arc copy for review.

Another tightly written, absorbing psychological thriller from this author. Multi faceted and cleverly constructed. Sure to be a top summer read.

The Shadow Friend was a spectacular read! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This book was not boring at all. It started off gritty and full of energy from the very beginning, and the build-up was slow but intense. It really had me on edge.

The was a certain eerieness to the novel, with what felt like a supernatural presence in the book. I enjoyed how it bent your mind to many different directions, how it made you feel things like the dread and the suspense. It made the book all that more unique and intense and it sent shivers down my spine.

I loved how the plot twists were placed in the story. It made you feel like how the characters felt in the novel. You were questioning yourself when something went down. And don't get me started on the ending. Mind. Blown.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was creepy, unpredictable with an ending that blew my mind. It was simply mind bending and spine chilling, and I loved it!

Dark from the outset a boy is killed by his friends only one of them disappears off the face of the earth. Other local children believe that something supernatural is going on and rumours abound.
Skipping forward Paul, one of the gang but shunned before the murder, returns as an adult to his childhood home when his mother falls and needs help in the house. and the truth begins to reveal itself with the cold case rising from the files as a similar occurrence happens in a nearby town some 25 years after the original murder and disappearance.
All sorts of odd happenings abound throughout the book- heavy on superstition with a continuous thread of lucid dreaming and the boys believing they control or interact with "the shadow friend"
Great characters in both time lines and a lot of red herrings along the way that trip up your assumptions even as you make them.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author for an advanced copy of this book.

I thought it was just wonderful. Dark, creepy and, at 75% through, the twist that stopped me dead and had me carrying on long into the early hours!

Alex North's writing is atmospheric and the characters sublime. I could read lots more!

5 stars from me :-)

A second outing for Alex North and another superior and chilling thriller. Nicely balanced and well paced, this one has enough missteps to keep you guessing throughout.

I did however struggle a little with a significant thread of the story related to dreaming, which leant the story towards horror/fantasy, which felt misplaced. Overall thoroughly enjoyable and very smart. A rounded up 3.5*

With thanks to Penguin UK, Michael Joseph and Netgalley for an advance copy in consideration of an honest review.

I loved The Whisper Man, and was intrigued by The Shadow Friend. However, I found it slightly disappointing. The story is good, but I found it all just a bit too weird. I also didn't feel much sympathy towards any of the characters, so it was difficult to get really involved in the book. A good read, but it didn't really grip me.

Another great book by Alex North that made me sleep with my light on.
Creepy, twisty, fast paced and fantastically written probably sums up my review of this book.

Paul thought he left the past behind him but when he needs to come back home to visit his terminally ill mother, the dark past awakens.

I enjoyed to read the past and present perspectives of Paul and to see how the author ingeniously created this fantastic sinister plot.

I did not see most of the twists coming and was glued to this book until the end and - although a bit too sinister for me - I really enjoyed it.

Cannot wait to read any future works from this author.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publishers for the advanced copy of The Shadow Friend in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the whisper man and was delighted to get my hands on an advance copy of Alex norths new book . Whilst I enjoyed this and found it to be an easy read I just didn’t really fall in love with the dream concept at all.. just a bit too far fetched for me . 3.5 stars

Alex North’s The Whisper Man was one of my favourite thrillers of 2019, a startling debut which balanced perfectly the mainstream page-turner with serial-killer horror and the possibility of the supernatural. The Shadow Friend is another standalone thriller, with a fresh set of characters, interestingly, it does mention in passing the shocking events of the previous novel in passing, but you can read this without having read the other. However, stylistically it is very similar to its predecessor, moving between two timelines which are years apart with the same supernatural whiff, probably stronger in this book, which keeps the reader hooked until the end.

If you’re after a page-turner I would highly recommend both books, but The Whisper Man probably just shades The Shadow Friend, mainly because it is slightly more unsettling with a more striking villain, but it’s a close call. Both plots are incredibly clever, with lots of red herrings, twists and incredibly damaged characters. No more so than the police leading the prospective investigations.

I’m going to be vague with the plot as I do not want to provide too many spoilers. After his mother has an accident at home, and is moved into hospital, Paul returns to the town where he was brought up but had left 25 years earlier. This is the fictional small-town of ‘Gritten’. We quickly find out that Paul had a difficult relationship with his parents and in flashback the plot returns to when he was fifteen and forced to move schools as the local closed, along with his best friend James. In the new school they become friends with Charlie and Billy, with the former becoming the ringleader of the gang. Charlie is a charismatic character who fends off bullies, but also believes that through experimentation people can share dreams, he calls this ‘lucid dreaming’ and so the boys start experimenting. Interestingly, Paul’s part of the story is told in the first-person narrative and in due course you’ll realise why.

The friendship dynamics of the teenage boys was a real strength of the novel, apart from James none of the boys were true misfits but found strength in their own little group with each other. I’m sure many readers will see some of themselves in these boys, passing Steven King novels amongst themselves and having adventures in the local woods until girls appeared on the horizon. The middle-aged Paul’s reflection on these times was spot on, nostalgic in spells but with the darkness never far away. Alex North is excellent at leading the reader up the garden path and with the first-person narrative anything is possible. It’s one of those “Just one more chapter” before bed kind of books. When you’re in the moment it is a very addictive read.

The second narrative, in the present day, concerns Detective Amanda Beck who is, by contrast, presented in the third person. Amanda is investigating the murder of a teenage boy in a neighbouring town and slowly connects the two cases after meets the adult Paul who remains haunted by the events of 25 years ago. Whilst caring for his sick mother he realises someone is intent on reminding him of those events, shocking him, or even worse.



There is a lot going on in The Shadow Friend and it is much more than a straight-forward thriller. It is
creepy, dark and compelling and you’ll need your wits about you as there are a lot of characters and the story is far from straight forward, with a couple of outstanding twists thrown in. It is also a moving meditation on family relationships, how the past repeats itself and how difficult it is to break old patterns and escape your past as Paul finds out. When Paul returns to the town of Gritton there are memories everywhere, ghosts even, and that is exactly how it is when you revisit childhood haunts as an adult. This was conveyed perfectly in the novel.

Part of the real strength of the novel was the manner in which it held back exactly what happened back in the 1980s, balancing this with a clever insight into urban legends, how they are born and the far reaching effects they can have, especially in the internet days.

If you enjoyed The Whisper Man you will also also get a kick out of The Shadow Friend, as it’s in the same ballpark, but that’s no bad thing. This is a great example of page-turning fiction with strong horror elements thrown into the mix.