One Line Summary

When a childhood act of silence returns to haunt a criminal profiler, an island wrapped in fog and grief reveals how monsters survive through what people choose not to see.

Opening Impression

The Man Made of Smoke is Alex North’s most unsettling novel to date, a study of memory, fear, and the quiet brutality of guilt. It opens like a ghost story and unfolds as a confession, blending procedural realism with an atmosphere of lingering unease.

Synopsis

As a boy, Dan Garvie witnessed something he never fully understood, a terrified child, a whistling man, and a phrase that followed him into adulthood. Years later, now a criminal profiler, Dan returns to his childhood island after his father’s apparent suicide.

New murders echo old trauma, and the same unseen menace appears to have resurfaced. As Dan uncovers his father’s private investigation, he is forced to confront the cost of inaction and the corrosive weight of guilt.

Analysis

Structure: Dual timelines braid investigation and memory, reshaping the past rather than simply explaining it.

Characterisation: Dan Garvie is both investigator and casualty, analytical yet deeply wounded by a single failure to act.

Style: Controlled, cinematic prose where fog, silence, and absence do the work of spectacle.

Themes: Trauma, guilt, and the invisibility of evil.

Verdict

The Man Made of Smoke is a slow-burning, deeply considered thriller whose power lies in recognition rather than shock.