‘Night Watcher’ by Daphne Woolsoncroft

Published by Grand Central Publishing,
30 April 2026.
ISBN-13: 978-153877091-7 (PB)

The menacing figure of the ‘Hiding Man’ stalks the pages of Woolsoncroft’s debut novel. He is a serial killer who takes as his prey lovely young women, grabbing them from behind—usually in their own homes—and slitting their throats. He’s like a caricature of the boogeyman children dream of lurking beneath their beds: clad in black clothes and gloves, his face concealed by a crude white mask with stitched holes for the eyes, ears and mouth. The sense of being watched alerts potential victims to his presence. 

Daphne Woolsoncroft prefaces her novel with these words: For those who have looked evil in the face. And anyone who has lost a loved one to a monster.’ Best known as the host and producer of the hit true crime podcast ‘Going West,’ which typically attracts around two hundred thousand listeners per episode, Woolsoncroft has recently—and energetically—ventured into crime fiction. Night Watcher is already followed by two more publications: The Season of Sinking and Made in Hollywood. 

Woolsoncroft explained in an article that appeared on 7 July 2025—one day before Night Watcher’s publication date— that her work as a podcaster and novelist is motivated by the death of her own aunt at the hands of a serial killer. Carol Woolsoncroft went missing in Florida at the age of twenty, presumably murdered by the boyfriend who would go on to kill three other individuals before he was finally apprehended and imprisoned. Daphne, born ten years after her aunt’s disappearance, admits she has always missed and grieved for her mother’s pretty sister, the aunt she would never meet. 

Although Woolsoncroft is a native of Los Angeles, she and her husband spent some years in Portland, Oregon, and the misty, gloomy weather of the Pacific Northwest features largely in Night Watcher, including some dramatic storms that heighten the tension of suspenseful episodes in the plot. There are two storylines, twenty years apart, with the action largely related by the protagonist, Nola Strate, who appears as a child of eight shocked when her babysitter is attacked and killed, and, two decades later as a young woman haunted by terrifying memories of that awful night. And yet, like the author herself, Nola is inspired by personal tragedy to forge a career which trades in tales of murder. Nola Strate has taken over ‘Night Watcher,’ a popular radio program in Portland her father, Chick, had created decades earlier. On retiring, he has invited his daughter to take his place as host, inviting listeners to call in with anecdotes of spirits and aliens and killers. 

The story has two narrators besides Nola. One is Jack De Lacey, a police detective whose long friendship with Chick Strate complicates his investigation when, after two decades of inactivity, two women are murdered and it seems the ‘Hiding Man’ has resumed his activities. Circumstances implicate Chick as a suspect. The other narrator, whose sections are entitled ‘Him,’ is the murderer himself. The action is fast paced and gripping. There are many twists and surprising revelations. Night Watcher is recommended for readers who like their crime fiction gritty and violent.
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Reviewer: Wendy Jones Nakanishi/aka Lea O’Harra.

Daphne Woolsoncroft, a Los Angeles native, is the host and producer of the hit true crime podcast Going West, with a 150K-200K listeners per episode and over two million monthly downloads. When she's not writing or researching true crime cases, you can find her traveling to gloomy destinations, catching the newest horror film in theaters, or reading on the couch with her plump English Bulldog, Dewey.

Lea O’Harra.  An American by birth, did her postgraduate work in Britain – an MA in Lancaster and a doctorate at Edinburgh – and worked full-time for 36 years at a Japanese university. Since retiring in March 2020, she has spent part of each year in Lancaster and part in Takamatsu on Shikoku Island, her second home, with occasional visits to the States to see family and friends. An avid reader of crime fiction since childhood, as a university professor she wrote academic articles on it as a literary genre and then decided to try her hand at composing such stories herself, publishing the so-called ‘Inspector Inoue mystery series’ comprising four murder mysteries set in rural, contemporary Japan. She has also published two standalone crime fiction novels.