Cover Image: The Whisperer's Game

The Whisperer's Game

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This is a chilling, but compelling read. At times uncomfortable, but always page-turningly intriguing.

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This is a complex murder mystery with a feel of the film The Matrix, where the boundaries between a virtual reality computer game and real life are blurred. There is also a touch of Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs. Quite a combination.

The story opens when a woman calls the police about an intruder in her isolated farmhouse, where she lives with her family and without any modern technology or electricity. By the time the police get there, the family has gone and the house is covered in blood. To assist in the case, the police ask for an ex-police officer, who worked in the missing persons department, to help with their investigation. Coincidentally, the former officer also lives in an isolated house with no technology. I'm not sure where this book is set, but it rains a lot.

The story moves at a great pace and there is a tension that runs throughout. The characters are all a bit bizarre and it is hard to work out who the 'goodies' are. Mainly told from the perspective of the ex-police officer but there are some sections that slip in from her colleague, his thoughts and actions, and then the point of view goes back to the main protagonist. Now and again, the story touches on the psychology of game players, murderers and a particular condition where empathy and emotion do not exist, but these are not discussed in any great depth.

A police procedural story in parts that looks at the human condition including grief, control and the concept of evil Artificial Intelligence. The tone is set when someone refers to a Buddhist community says, 'Those people are odd: they're vegetarians.'

An unusual and interesting read.

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Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. A really good read that I would recommend!

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This sci-fi thriller was really not up my alley.
Going in, I was not aware it had sci-fi elements and that really was not my cup of tea.

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A woman calls the police because her husband is confronted by a stranger. When the police arrive the house is drenched in blood but there are no bodies. Following a tip-off the police rapidly arrest a man covered with tattoos of numbers and forensic evidence clearly links him to the crime. However, he refuses to say where the bodies are hidden; in fact he refuses to say anything. Mila, a former criminologist and profiler, is called back by the police in the hope that she can unlock the riddle. Reluctant to get dragged back into a world she hates, she nevertheless elicits some new evidence in the form of a grid reference. She also recognises that the man is a Whisperer, someone who can persuade others to carry out serious crimes including murder. The trail leads her to a dark web interactive game in which gamers can live out their wildest fantasies safely – or perhaps not so safely. When her ten year old daughter is kidnapped, Mila has no choice but to enter the game as an avatar of herself. Can she solve the enigma of the tattooed man’s identity, can she solve the murder which started the story, can she save her daughter? The plot, as they say, thickens.
I use that cliché partly because it reflects the somewhat patchy English used, and partly because the plot really does thicken, i.e. becomes denser (this isn’t meant to be a compliment). The book is translated from Italian and the English, although grammatically accurate, is somewhat stilted. It is also quite repetitive, particularly in “reintroducing” characters with whom we are already familiar and “the-story-so-far” summations. There are a number of occasions when Mila is in jeopardy, but they don’t create much tension. The Game is integral to the plot, but I have issues with both the technology aspects and the activity of the whisperer. Perhaps it is a problem of genre – is it trying too hard to be a police procedural, a psychological thriller and a Sci-Fi story? This is the fourth book featuring Mila, but that doesn’t cause any difficulty since there is minimal connection between them. The ending feels unsatisfactory, although this is partly because the author is clearly setting up for a sequel. Overall I was disappointed and felt that a good idea had got lost in the telling. I’m around 2.5 on this, which rounds to 3.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

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Mila Vasquez is a former police officer, who worked in the missing persons department known as ‘Limbo’ and has taken a step back away from outside contact and now lives in the countryside without internet or telephone connection. She is trying to protect her daughter, Alice, who doesn’t have a father figure as he is in a long-term coma. Mila suffers from alexithymia which means she has trouble in expressing her feelings and emotions to others and lacks the capacity for empathy.

One day the Chief of the Federal Police Department, Joanna Shutton, arrives unannounced and unexpected. She asks Mila to look at a case of the disappearance of a family after seemingly an attack by a stranger that results in a bloodbath at the scene. Their bodies haven’t been found but after a tip off they have arrested the man they believe responsible, who refuses to talk and is covered from head to toe with numbers tattooed into his skin. Mila refuses to help until she is told that he also has her name tattooed on his body.
Reluctantly she is drawn into the case and after trying to interview the man known as ‘Enigma’ she realises that he is a whisperer. Somewhat like Charles Manson he can persuade others to do his evil bidding including murder.

When Alice is kidnapped Mila is drawn into a battle with the unknown and with a virtual reality world she ill equipped to negotiate. She is aided by former colleague Simon Berish, who replaced her in Limbo, and a mysterious hacker Pascal, as she tries to negotiate between reality and the virtual reality of the computer simulation of Elsewhere. However, she comes to realise that she is dependent on people who she isn’t sure she can trust.


The Whisperer’s Game starts off as a crime novel develops into a psychological thriller and then morphs into a Matrix-esque computer simulation, virtual reality thriller and then back again. Even the crime element is hard to pin down, it seems a bit Scandi-noir in style but there is no indication of location and many other aspects have US influences. All of this could have been a confused mess of a novel but we end up with a complex but largely cogent tale which is likely to appeal to fans of technology and sci-fi as much as crime readers.

The theme revolves around an experimentation of the interaction of real life with a computer game and what would happen if the violence that could be experienced within the game effected the way players lived their life outside. Would they live out violent and extreme fantasies?

The prose is intelligent without becoming too dense and there are thought provoking markers along the way; is it possible to withdraw from modern life, can one live off the grid and escape one’s past and are we sure all scientific research is in good faith.

The plot is both complex and twisty as it moves between real life and the computer simulation (described as ‘a fairground for fucking maniacs’) and then later as Mila discovers how she has been played by others. Mila is both a player within the game and essentially a pawn within something much bigger. Throughout there are tricks and bluffs to throw the reader off track and as Mila struggles with who to trust it is never clear what some characters motives are until the end.

The Whisperer’s Game is a bold cross over between crime and science fiction which will entertain readers of both and especially those who play video games.

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When I started reading this I wondered where this would lead. A call from an isolated farmhouse, the police unable to get there until several hours later, the family have disappeared and then someone is arrested.

Mila Vasquez, ex police, and now living an isolated existence with her daughter, seems to be called by the arrested individual. Without giving anything away nothing is what it seems, some books enable you to unravel things quickly this draws you along.

It is brilliant from start to finish and look forward to reading another book in the future!

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.Donato Carrisi is an author, screenwriter and director who first came to international prominence with his best seller and multiple prize winning title The Whisperer which was published in English in 2010. This introduced criminologist Mila Vasquez working with a profiler to discover the perpetrator of some ritualistic murders. Between penning other novels which he also screenwrote and directed, The Girl In The Fog and Into The Labyrinth, Carrisi has periodically returned to the series. The Whisperer’s Game marks the fourth instalment. I must admit that I have not yet read the earlier books in the series, although I have bought two of them, as I am keen to read the series as a whole. Fortunately Carrisi does reveal enough for The Whisperer’s Game to be enjoyed as a standalone. Having not read his earlier novels, I had expected a fairly conventional novel firmly rooted in the crime genre, yet to my surprise The Whisperer’s Game contains aspects of speculative and supernatural fiction as the story progresses.

Although penned by an Italian author, it is interesting to note that there is no specific Italian flavour to the novel. It’s as far removed from Andrea Camilleri as it can be! Most of the action takes place either in a major city or in remote countryside while the names of the characters suggest a wide range of origins without a specific location mentioned. Mila Vasquez is living in a very secluded area close to a lake and forested land where she lives alone with her young daughter. She has purposely almost disconnected herself from the entire world. While she has a medical condition known as alexithymia which give her a pathological lack of empathy she has managed to feel content with her life. Her daughter does seem happy with her slightly strange upbringing. Yet this is to change when she receives a visit from a senior member of the police hierarchy and is asked to help them with a case.

It is explained to Mila that the police received an emergency call from a distressed woman who has informed them that a stranger had appeared at their own distant location. Her husband has gone outside to try to persuade the intruder to leave. As she mentions concern for their two young children, the authorities decide make the way there. They are held up by a storm and arrive hours later to find a blood soaked house with visible signs of a struggle but no bodies anywhere in the vicinity. With no leads of their own to work on, the police then receive an tipoff about a man driving a vehicle which is believed to have been seen close to the apparent massacre. This man known as Enigma has been tracked down and arrested. Completely covered in tattoos of numbers, he has so far refused to talk to the authorities.

Although Mila had promised herself that she will never get involved in any more police investigations for the sake of her daughter, she does find herself intrigued enough to agree to return to the police headquarters for one day. Accompanied by a close colleague she finds that one day becomes two and so on… While it appears clear that she has the confidence of the superior officer, in contrast the other investigators are very sceptical and dubious of her input; particularly when she suggestions that Enigma is one of a very few people who can be described as a whisperer (as I understand it one have the ability to communicate unconsciously). When it is revealed to Mila that among the tattoos of numbers on Enigma’s body is her name, she reluctantly agrees to meet him under high security. When Mila does meet him, Enigma gives her a bizarre signal which she later realises is a clue to develop a lead.

Up to this stage, was engrossed by The Whisperer’s Game. It was edgy, unpredictable and I was enjoying the characterisations, particularly that of Mila Vasquez. The translation by Katherine Gregor is really very effective and there were never any times that I felt it was ambiguous. I really felt some of the scenes were exceptionally well done, particularly the encounter between Mila and Enigma which was very creepy. As the investigation into the family murder progresses, Mila discovers that her daughter is at risk. She then encounters a strange man who states he is in a similar position with a missing son. The book then bends genre to present a virtual reality to Mila – the clue to this is in the name of the book! Mila is told by the stranger that she required to enter an obsolete video game to discover the answers and save her daughter.

From that point on there are still periods of high tension, some cryptic clues and imagery and even some paranormal moments. This leads to some reflections back into her own life for Mila with. Sadly I did not feel quite as engaged with some of these sections of the story as I had done previously as the story was bit harder to follow. Having said that I did feel that the conclusion was very satisfying as all the threads were pulled together and dealt with in a very effective way. Overall I feel if giving the book a rating it would be five stars for the first half and three four the second, but I actually do feel I might have slightly done the author an injustice by doing so. This is part of the reason that I am very keen to read more by Carrisi and gain a sense from the start as to Mila Vasquez’s backstory. Overall this is definitely a story to read if you like less conventional crime fiction stories and are open to encounter a modicum of science fiction with it.

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I am new to Donato Carrisi but not anymore. I loved this book which kind of surprised me since I'm not into gaming. Mia is a great character and the writing is really good. Highly recommend this book. All in all, it's a really fabulous thriller. You'll have to excuse me now, but I'm off to buy his other books.

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Having previously read thrillers and police procedural by Donato Carrisi I was looking forward to this new book. It started well and the scene was set for a fast paced thriller but then it entered the world of online games and virtual reality and the plot did not fully work for me as I wasn’t totally sure what was in real plot time or part of an online game.There was also a lot of characters with names that were pseudonyms and this added to my confusion . I finished the book but have to say it wasn’t one of the best but maybe I’m just too old for crime set in the world of online gaming ….

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WOW! what a crazy but brilliant book! it was brutal in parts and kept me in fear constantly thinking...could this ever really happen??

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A brilliantly written thriller that will give you chills and thrills this mystery thriller definitely deserves to be big I loved reading it and it blow me away.

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Please my I recommend that you read the first book in the series... The Whisperer... before this one. I think it makes so much more sense as a follow on book. So much of the character of Mila is brought out in the first book that it might help to understand and make more sense of this one.
The complex riddle that our heroine Mila has to engage with is confusing and will only suit a certain type of reader who likes a puzzle in a novel.

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The first part of the novel I found very compelling, and thought the section where she went into the prison so vividly written that I felt I was there. When Mila entered the video game I didn't enjoy it as much, but this is probably an age thing. I haven't read the previous book and might give it a try.

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A brilliant book
A world you could see all too easily
Mila is a very brave very human protagonist
I love this
Really looking forward to the next instalemt

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I first read the whisperer many years ago and was really pleased when I heard about this new book. Mila Vasquez has left the police force and moved to the countryside when she receives a visit enticing her back to look at a case.
What follows are a series of twists and turns as Mila tries to make sense of it all, save a missing child and find the whisperer.
Very dark in nature but completely involving. A really good read.

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An enthralling and disturbing novel, which pits a damaged former policewoman against a ‘whisperer’ - someone who manipulates others to commit crimes.

The book charts how she must recover her abducted daughter via engagement in a virtual reality game which blurs the line between fantasy and reality.

The book is at once gripping and tense, and the plot twists make for a satisfying read.

Great stuff for dystopian dreamers, detective story buffs, and those who just like a strange, eerie story.

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I would like to thank Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for an advance copy of The Whisperer’s Game, the second novel to feature Mila Vasquez.

A woman phones the police to say there is an intruder in her garden. When the police get there nobody is home, but there is a lot of blood. Mila has left the police and lives a quiet life with her daughter, Alice, in an isolated location. She has no interest in investigating, but gets dragged into it through a series of events.

I read The Whisperer in preparation for The Whisperer’s Game and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to this, but it didn’t catch or hold my attention the same way. Some of this is due to my own failings, but some of it is due to the content. Due to illness I have no visualisation skills, so a novel that hangs on a virtual reality game for its progress is not ideal for me as I simply don’t understand and can’t picture it. The Whisperer was an ensemble piece with a team investigating, whereas this is Mila alone with a little input from her detective friend, Simon Berish. Give her her due, she is focused and dedicated but the reader never gets a real feel for her or a way to identify with her, not least because she has no empathy.

This is a novel of twists and turns and creeping tension which the author maximises by anonymising the location. I felt the tension and was continually surprised by each turn but I’m not going to pretend that I understand why the plot does what it does and how or why it goes from one point to the next. It seems a long, convoluted route to the final ironic point.

I simply found The Whisperer’s Game confusing. It’s readable and imaginative but I never felt settled.

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This is a chilling, mesmerising thriller. The Whisperer plays with our minds as he tests Mila to the limits of her safety and sanity as she tries to unravel the mysterious murder of an isolated family. There were some complicated psychological twists which challenge the reader's understanding of the evil forces at play and kept me enthralled until the last pages.

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Donato Carrisi, the multi-talented Italian author, director, and screenwriter, is back for the latest volume in the Mila Vasquez series, a saga which began with the best-selling novel, The Whisperer. Carrisi's fictional universe is filled with bizarre phenomena and high caliber suspense that escalates slowly until the always surprising finale. Cinema audiences had the chance to watch two of his directorial attempts in the superb The Girl in the Fog, starring Toni Servillo and Jean Reno, and the visually impressive, though confusing in terms of plot, Into the Labyrinth. Both movies became immensely popular and the theories about what truly happened in the end still circulate around the various movie forums in the web. Carrisi's masterful directing and the exceptional performances by the protagonists mesmerized the viewers and gave prominence to the grotesque aspect of the films that is the Italian auteur's and author's trademark.

Carrisi's novels follow the same recipe and in The Whisperer's Game, the readers have the chance to relish a potent thriller with dashes of horror and even some paranormal occurrences. The book is based on its coherent plot structure and strong characters who delve into a nightmarish scenario when an abhorrent villain decides to play a game that involves Mila, a woman who a long time ago left the police force and the missing persons department in order to move away in the countryside along with her little daughter. Mila's return to action signifies the breaking of the oath she took to retire and never look back to her previous life. Her pathological lack of empathy, a condition medically described as alexithymia, is both her blessing and curse as while it helped her to be a successful professional, it also condemned her to a life in which she has to cut herself in order to gain an insight into other people's pain.

The story begins when the police take a distress call from a mother of two who tells her interlocutor that a stranger is at her front porch and is looking straight into their house. Her husband left the home in order to talk to the invader and convince him to leave, but the intruder seems oblivious to his bickering. When the police arrive to the house, they find a scene that resembles a bloodbath and the four family members are gone, presumably dead, murdered by an unknown assailant. Though it is clear that the family was executed, the bodies are nowhere to be found and the authorities have no leads as to the identity of the strange visitor who is the most likely culprit. Due to an anonymous tip, they make an arrest of an obnoxious man, nicknamed Enigma, filled with tattoos of numbers all over his body who refuses to talk to anyone. Among the numbers tattooed in his skin, there is also a name: that of Mila's.

Thus, our protagonist is drawn to the case even though she swore a long of time ago that she wouldn't implicate herself in an active investigation ever again. Her former colleagues are distrustful as they consider her long gone and a person who is already retired. Nevertheless, her input is valued by the chief of the operations as Mila used to be one of the most intuitive and effective missing persons investigators. Enigma's attempt to implicate her in the case will prove to be a mystery within a mystery as the plot unfolds and Mila gets deeper and deeper into an investigation that involves past unsolved cases, an obsolete virtual reality videogame through which criminals practice their future atrocities, and, above all, the secret that connects Mila with Enigma and the reason behind Enigma's persistence to involve her in this eerie situation. Mila is mainly working alone, though she allows one of her closest ex-colleagues to help her in some difficult occasions.

The book doesn't beat about the bush and from page one, the reader gets immersed in the story as Carrisi wastes no time in superfluous descriptions or inconsequential dialogue and introduces us to the hellish event of the killing of a whole family. This initial situation acts as the instigator of the story which unravels in fast tempo, always offering to the reader something new to mull over. There are several different plot strands held together by a unifying theme that never gets overshadowed by any of the various sub-plots. The Whisperer's Game is a novel that demands the readers' full attention as there are lot of details and fine points that could make a huge difference to the correct interpretation of the story. Some may find the plot a bit convoluted as the author keeps feeding the reader with information about past cases, but the truth is that everything makes sense in the end and nothing is redundant.

Overall, I would say that this is a highly entertaining thriller bearing the signature of one of the most particular contemporary Italian crime authors. If you are not familiar with the previous installments of the series, no worries as Carrisi is careful enough to divulge the necessary clues about the main characters from the beginning. I am one of those who haven't read anything by Donato Carrisi so far and my first impression of his work is more than positive as he delivers a distinctive novel, reminiscent of his movies, especially the much-discussed Into the Labyrinth. I like his style and there are no other authors that I can think of who write in a similar manner. He has a fine grasp of the freakish and the extraordinary and he manages to incorporate those elements in a mix of thriller and horror fiction that grounds the reader. I would urge you to also watch his movies as they will help you to form an initial picture of his narrative style and choice of themes. I want to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free ARC of this title.

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