Fourteen year-old Maddy, who is half Narragansett Indian, is still dealing with the deaths of her parents in an accident that damaged her left arm when she begins to suspect she is being stalked by a monster from tribal folklore. She has always loved scary stories, especially those of her father’s people and those by local celebrity H. P. Lovecraft. Thanks to her Grama Delia, Maddy knows the details of the story of The Whisperer in the Dark, a knife-fingered madman possessed by a demon. She receives menacing phone calls, something attacks her dog and her Aunt Lyssa vanishes. Maddy and her best friend Roger slowly unravel the mysterious events and she gains enough confidence in herself to face a very real demon. Bruchac’s third short, creepy novel steeped in Native American legend suffers from some of the same problems as the last (The Dark Pond, 2004); the characterizations are thin, and the narrative pace staggers. However, reluctant readers in search of something spooky could definitely do worse. Final art not seen. (Fiction. 9-13)
