A Season of Whispers

Kuhl’s (The Dead Ride Fast) 1844-set Gothic pastiche, with a tightly crafted, unpredictable plot, follows shifty Tom Lyman who poses as a carpenter in order to join Bonaventure, a utopian farming commune led by David Grosvenor. At Bonaventure, Lyman is uneasy the minute he first hears his cabin walls whispering, but his criminal past and flirtation with Grosvenor’s daughter Minerva keep him tied to the farm, despite the growing suspicions of the commune’s longtime members. Bonaventure, staffed by idealists, provides a high-contrast backdrop for a showdown between the selfish backstabbers therein. The novel follows weaselly Lyman across a taut string as he turns to eldritch subterranean fiends in order to save himself from hired thugs out for revenge, and from Grosvenor’s own otherworldly scheming. Narrators Darrin and Kristy Johnson perform with a gusto that makes up for some of the baffling Foley effects (including what sounds like a cordless power drill during the carpentry scenes).