Mr. Whisper

A Thriller (The Specialists, Book 1)

De: Andrew Mayne

Narrado por: Jennifer O'Donnell, Susannah Jones, Will Damron, James Anderson Foster

Four brilliant investigators combine forces to outwit an insidious master of online mind control in a gripping thriller by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Final Equinox.

Investigator Sloan McPherson finds a frightened vagrant suffering from amnesia living in a Florida swamp—then learns he disappeared from Oregon when he was a teenager. To find out how he ended up three thousand miles from home thirty years later, Sloan enlists the help of two brilliant colleagues.

FBI agent Jessica Blackwood and scientist Theo Cray have already made an alarming connection. A female classmate of the Everglades drifter disappeared at the same time, and their high school journals reveal ties to an enigmatic figure they both called Mr. Whisper. Under his influence they did as they were told. The case is also attracting the attention of corporate security expert Brad Trasker, whose trail is leading to the dark heart of a master manipulator.

Jessica, Theo, Sloan, and Brad must now bring their unique skills to the table to take down a diabolical adversary. Unless Mr. Whisper’s decades-long control of the vulnerable is too powerful and far-reaching to stop.

©2025 by Andrew Mayne. (P)2025 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Love Andrew Mayne books

Great story and great voices. Brings and keeps characters alive. Like consistency of voices. Fun to have so many past characters together in one book.

Mind bender with the whole crew.

Great mesh of characters. Another great story and this one was a puzzler. Really well thought out and took a while to reveal the antagonist.

The only downside was Jessica's narrator. She speaks slow and sounds impersonal, making for an unnatural listen. But the other three narrators for Theo, Sloan, and Brad did great as usual.

Oh So Satisfying

One of my favorite authors brings all of my favorite characters together into another fantastic story. I loved every minute of it.

It’s about the search

I liked how this book was about the search for someone and the twists and turns that follow, the action only happens the last hour or so of the book. Very good.

This is Ultron not Endgame.

I was excited for this team up novel. I like how all the characters from the other books are were voiced by their actors. Would have been more effective as several books as opposed to a mashup. Each chapter builds to a team up but the end of the team up is so fast that you’d miss if you blinked. Functions more as a setup for future books. The most fun exists when Theo uses his Not Pron x Prompt Engineer skills to get out of trouble but again this sequence is far too short.
Hoping the next book is a larger exploration of the implications of Mr Whisper. I’m fairly certain that Mayne was heavily influenced by Marvel’s Secret Wars and that will play out over the next novel and that will be very fun to experience. Looking forward to the next in the series.

Less character time for Theo Cray

I enjoy every book written by Andrew Mayne. I especially enjoy the combination of the characters from his other series. I did feel the ending to this series was lackluster and rushed. Overall this was still a really good listen.

A Must Read Thriller!

Andrew Mayne is a freaking wizard! Mayne's been an auto buy for me ever since I listened to The Naturalist. I've recommended The Naturalist to every book lover I know and have personally listened to it three times. It remained my top favorite of Mayne’s until his latest, Mr. Whisper. With a deft hand wielding science, technology, magic, and secret government spy craft, Mayne brings his fabulous unique geniuses together - my favorite Theo Cray – along with Jessica Blackwood, Sloan McPherson, and Brad Trasker, to solve a mystery that involves disparate events and people, from high school students to aerospace engineers. Each mysterious situation involves the result of a controlling psychological influence by an unknown entity or entities. One of our own government clandestine projects? A mind control experiment funded by another country? And Mr. Whisper is a name that just skirts the edges of the minds of the victims.
I listened to the entire book in one go, only pausing for essential life tasks. I will offer one caveat and that is to read at least one of Mayne’s previous books to fully appreciate the collaboration of his characters. I recommend The Naturalist (Theo Cray), Angel Killer (Jessica Blackwood), The Girl Beneath the Sea: A Thriller Underwater Investigation Unit (Sloan McPherson), and Night Owl (Brad Trasker) to start. And if you’re addicted by the end of one of Mayne’s books like I am, welcome to the thrill ride!
In addition to character collaboration, the narration of Mr. Whisper is a collaboration of incredible voice actors: Will Damron (my favorite since The Naturalist), Jennifer O’Donnell, Susannah Jones, and James Anderson Foster. These are amazing narrators in their own right and together they take Mr. Whisper to the stars.

As always, a winner for this series!

Bringing all of these characters together was a brilliant move! Always intelligent and creative and very satisfying! More!

Mostly boring

I generally love Andrew Mayne books but this one just didn’t keep my attention. It seemed meandering and repetitive and went nowhere fast. Like another reviewer said, Jessica’s narrator spoke robotically which was distracting. The end was mostly satisfying.

A bit of a disappointment

2.75 Stars ⭐️

I thought at the beginning of this book that this was a "new to me" author, but I realized that I had actually read a book or two from him in the past. I think, though, that I liked the other books a lot more than I liked this book. I'm not sure what it was, but I could not ever really fall into this story.

The entire book felt extremely one dimensional. The plot line itself, well, it was unbelievably contrived and if you put ANY thought to it - not very plausible....at all. Now, don't get me wrong. The whole premise in the thriller genre is being able to put aside a certain amount of believability to be able to enjoy whatever craziness is occurring in these stories. I have no problem with that. THIS story though, I just could not wrap my head around it. And I felt like it was really never sufficiently explained or defined. There wasn't the amount of depth or filling to create the foundation as a springboard for the events that occur.

And the way the investigative team went about finding all of the additional people - suspects to interview, victims, etc.....there was just not enough believability for me to see ANY type of path that got them there. And that doesn't even say anything about the actual "bad guy". Seriously????

Once the reveal occurs, it was a serious let down for me because it just didn't make sense. I couldn't connect the dots in my head - because events had been occurring for almost 30 years or so (don't quote me on that, I don't remember exactly, but it was a long time) and I just couldn't see it happening - neither in the way they explained, or in any way that made sense.

Who knows, maybe it was just me. It has been known to happen. Maybe I was just not in a receiving mode that day.....you never know. Oh, and don't get me started with the fact that the book just basically.....ends. Yes, I understand the latest trend seems to be every author leaving cliffhangers to get you to keep moving on with the series, but this wasn't even that. It just ended. I seriously had to go back and see if I missed a chapter or something....not cool. Not cool at all.

Will I continue with the next book in the series? No, I think I'm going to stop while I'm ahead.