When I think of Alex North, I think of horror and scary. I felt the book was initially set up to scare the pants off of me. I mean a man’s face that is unrecognizable, almost like smoke? Come on. Perfect horror book.

Yet, I would categorize this book as a psychological thriller. There are twists. It’s intelligent. You have to follow along and know what’s going on. It’s a slow burn as the reader picks up clues along the way.

Now that sounds all super exciting, but for me, it was a little too slow. Maybe a little too intelligent(?). I know a lot of people said the three alternating POV‘s flowed seamlessly. For me, they didn’t. I felt sometimes confused switching timelines. Why did I care about the alternate timeline? Is this POV filler or helpful? The author did a good job of trying not to repeat too much of the storylines between the POVs, as they were slightly overlapping when each character was experiencing the same situation. 

Due to the slow burn, this book was not as gripping as I would have liked.

It took me a while to finish, because the book never really pulled me in. It didn’t trigger that obsessive reader thing that happens sometimes. You know what I’m talking about.

And as most readers mentioned, the ending was a complete letdown. I enjoy guessing what the twist would be while reading and found I was wrong. (Duh) I feel my guesses were a lot more exciting than what North actually constructed as our big exciting reveal. The real thing was just ‘meh’. There’s too much buildup of the alternating POV’s that I longed to see woven together.

This is still an excellent, smartly done, thriller from Alex North. I would recommend to my reader friends.

Reading Notes …

• _{I confused the last names of Saunders and Sanderson. I had to go back and check if they have the same last name.} 

Amazon Link – The Man Made of Smoke By: Alex North

Stats: 310 pages – First published May 13, 2025