I received a copy of this title from the author (Brian Freeman) and Cemetery Dance in exchange for an honest review.

This is the second collaboration involving Brian Freeman that I have read recently and I can tell you that the chemistry is different each time. The other novel, also very enjoyable, was The Halloween Children—written with Norman Prentiss. Both stories are quite dark, but this one had a fairy tale quality to it that may have been Richard Chizmar’s influence. Chizmar just published Gwendy’s Box that he wrote with Stephen King and some reviewers have likened the tone of Darkness Whispers to King and I can see that, especially in the “Needful Things” vibe the plot was giving off.

King, however, at least in most of his writing (Revival being a big exception), has a gentle grand-fatherly voice that, even after he just scared the snot out of you, ruffles your hair and tells you to go along now and play and don’t think too much about the scary stuff he just seared into your brain.
Darkness Whispers is more brutal than that.

This novella is about how anything good probably won’t last. About how many of us hold a darkness inside—a darkness that listens when evil comes and whispers in our ear. It’s about how you can know someone so well, you think; yet be so fooled when they show the monstrosity that they had concealed.

And it is about how certain people can make the big sacrifices that save us all.

The devil may be cheated. Maybe a bit ticked off. But he will move on because it is a big, wide world out there and the truly noble folks are, sad to say, few and far between.

And the devil never rests. ( )