THE MAN MADE OF SMOKE is a gripping serial killer thriller from an author whose trademark combination of horrifying shock and eerie suspense proves yet again that no one writes --- or puts readers in the minds of --- killers like Alex North.

“Snack situation evaluation” says 12-year-old Dan Garvie’s father when he turns into a rest stop on the family’s way home from a day trip at the zoo. Accompanying Dan and his father are Dan’s mother and his best friend, Sarah. At 12, Dan’s ideas about the world are changing, growing bigger and darker, and he has the sense that he exists in a liminal space, one between childhood and adulthood, friendship with Sarah and something more romantic.

Dan doesn’t realize how right he is. Only a few moments later, he will encounter a dirty, gaunt little boy trailing a tall, creepy man. Donning a long green coat and dirty work boots, the adult gives off the impression that he is better unnoticed and ignored, despite the obvious fear in his tiny companion’s eyes. As the two depart from the rest stop’s bathroom, the boy drops a photograph in front of Dan that proves he is in grave danger.

"THE MAN MADE OF SMOKE is a gripping serial killer thriller from an author whose trademark combination of horrifying shock and eerie suspense proves yet again that no one writes --- or puts readers in the minds of --- killers like Alex North."

Dan has just encountered the Pied Piper, a soon-to-be-notorious serial killer who targets children left unwatched or neglected by their families. His parting words, “Nobody sees, and nobody cares,” leave Dan haunted, and despite the investigation that follows, he is never able to confirm who --- or what --- he saw that day. Weeks later, a camper is discovered with the Pied Piper’s body inside, along with the remains of four little boys found burned to a crisp in the back of the vehicle. Case solved, say the police, but Dan knows that isn’t true. Despite forensic comparisons, none of the identified victims match the child he saw.

Now it is decades later, and Dan has mostly managed to put the events of that day behind him. He has departed the remote island where he lived with his family and has a respectable career as a police profiler. Getting in the minds of killers and abusers would unsettle most people, but Dan takes comfort in recognizing that every killer he profiles is just a man, not a monster. Gone are the days when he obsessed over the Pied Piper, even carrying around the definitive book about his crimes, The Man Made of Smoke. His father, now retired from the local police force, has also moved on, and the two enjoy a comfortable if distanced relationship. And then the call comes: Dan’s father has taken his own life.

How could Dan, a profiler of all things, have missed the signs that his father was struggling with something? When he returns to the island, he learns that his father recently discovered a body in the woods, a woman burned to a crisp. But everyone --- from the lead detective to his former best friend, Sarah --- tells him that his father was untroubled by the discovery. After all, he had seen worse before, right down to the terrors that plagued Dan in the days following his run-in with the Pied Piper. Dan thinks there’s something more here, perhaps related to that very day.

As Dan begins the arduous process of going through his father’s things, he learns that his father never did put that day behind him. He has boxes upon boxes of research that indicate a near obsession with the Pied Piper…and with the boy he saw that day. As Dan retraces his father’s steps, he finds not answers, but more bodies, more witnesses, more people who were threatened by the Pied Piper. But with the man confirmed dead, it seems that someone else has taken up his mantle.

If Dan’s father’s investigation is any proof, he appears to be taking down everyone who let down that little boy, those who saw but didn’t care. And more than that, he seems to be doing this in hopes of catching the attention of one person: Dan. Employing his profiler’s mind and his father’s --- meticulous, nearly preternaturally gifted --- investigation, Dan must look back at his encounter with the Pied Piper to ask what he really saw…and didn’t see.

I write this review with one eye peering about, checking my surroundings --- that is the power of an Alex North novel. No one writes sinister, dread-inducing suspense like him, but I dare say that he is at the top of his game with THE MAN MADE OF SMOKE. Far more than a serial killer thriller (though it represents the very best of the genre), it is also a gripping, introspective character study, not just of the Pied Piper or even Dan, but of fathers and sons and how they learn to support and protect one another. These emotional scenes between Dan and his late father --- expertly rendered and often surprisingly touching --- lull the reader into a sense of security that North then does his very best to upend at every creepy, chilling turn.

Pairing Dan’s profiling skills with a mystery that keeps fraying around the edges, North pens a whodunit that will keep you guessing, even when you must do so from between your fingers. Add to this some seriously poignant musings on trauma and the way that secrets often haunt us for far longer than we hope, and you have a novel that can be read in one sitting --- it is that good --- but will stick with you for far longer than one night.

THE MAN MADE OF SMOKE is a truly terrifying, gripping novel. But as Dan warns us early on, the greatest danger is never the monster, but the man.