The Whispering Man

The Whispering Man (1908) is a novel by Henry Kitchell Webster. Written at the height of Webster’s career as a popular author of magazine serials, The Whispering Man is a story of romance, mystery, and murder. Filled with twists and complicated motives, The Whispering Man remains an underappreciated whodunnit over a century after it appeared in print. “It is strange that we should have been talking about Dr. Marshall that very night, I and my new friend and neighbor, across our little table in the restaurant. Talking about him we were, and at considerable length, too, before I bought the paper that had the news of his death in it.” Out to dinner with his friend Arthur Jeffrey, a painter, Drew learns of the death of Dr. Roscoe Marshall, a prominent alienist, from natural causes. Only moments before, they had been discussing Marshall’s work in relation to Drew’s expertise in legal evidence, to which Jeffrey had responded by detailing his portrait work for Marshall’s wife. As it turns out, Madeline Marshall, née Cartwright, is a former love interest of Drew’s, and the discussion has loosened a painful memory within him. Shocked by the news of the doctor’s death, Drew looks across the dining room to find Marshall’s son, who has come at his mother’s request. In the cab back to their apartment, the young man has one word on his lips: murder. With a beautifully designed cover and a professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Henry Kitchell Webster’s The Whispering Man is a classic of American mystery fiction reimagined for modern readers.

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Henry Kitchell Webster (1875-1932) was an American novelist and short story writer. Born in Evanston, Illinois, Webster graduated from Hamilton College in 1897 before taking a job as a teacher at Union College in Schenectady, New York. Alongside coauthor Samuel Merwin, Webster found early success with such novels as The Short Line War (1899) and Calumet “K” (1901), the latter a favorite of Ayn Rand’s. Webster’s stories, often set in Chicago, were frequently released as serials before appearing as bestselling novels, a formula perfected by the author throughout his hugely successful career. By the end of his life, Webster was known across the United States as a leading writer of mystery, science fiction, and realist novels and stories.