Book Review: The Noise by James Patterson
This latest collaboration with JD Barker is a mysterious, action-packed horror story.
James Patterson’s previous collaboration with JD Barker — The Coast to Coast Murders — was more of a crime thriller, but the pair’s most recent release The Noise sees them wander much more into horror and even sci-fi territory — and I’m definitely here for it.
The Noise opens with two young girls living in a mountainside community that’s isolated from the outside world by choice. They’re out catching rabbits when an unbearably painful sound reverberates around the hills and valleys.
The village is decimated, but not before the girls’ quick-thinking father shoves them into an underground storm shelter in a last-ditch effort to save them.
A team of experts is quickly brought in to investigate what could have happened up there on the mountain— and it’s here that it gets difficult to reveal much more without getting into spoilers.
The Noise is simply full of action, and more than once it crossed my mind what an excellent movie it would make because of this. Also, even though the idea of a dangerous sound might not sound particularly frightening, some of the incidents within this book are truly nightmare-inducing and will stay with you long after you turn the final pages (even the very last chapter has a real doozy).
There is a large cast of characters to contend with at first in this story, and I did find myself getting a little confused with some of the scientists’ and army members’ names sometimes. However, as with any good horror, not all of them will last until the denouement!
Reminiscent of Stephen King’s Cell, World War Z and the early foreboding of Bird Box, this is a horror novel with a realistic sense of ‘what if?’ and I’m really glad I read it thus summer.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin publishers in the UK for the advance e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The Noise is out now.
