Title – Shadow Man
Author – Alan Drew
Published/Publisher – January 2018 / Corvus Books
Genre – Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Suspense
Pages – 340
Summary from Goodreads
What Dennis Lehane does for Boston, Alan Drew does for Southern California in this gritty thriller about an idyllic community rocked by a serial killer—and a dark secret.
Detective Ben Wade has returned to his California hometown of Rancho Santa Elena for a quieter life. Suddenly the town, with its peaceful streets and excellent public schools, finds itself at the mercy of a serial killer who slips through windows and screen doors, shattering illusions of safety. As Ben and forensic specialist Natasha Betencourt struggle to stay one step ahead of the killer, Ben’s own world is rocked again by a teen’s suicide. Ben must decide how far he is willing to go, and how much he will risk, to rescue the town from a long-buried secret, as well as from a psychotic murderer.
With eerie, chilling, fine prose, Alan Drew brings us into the treacherous underbelly of a suburban California town in this brilliant novel of suspense about a man, and a community, confronted with the heart of human darkness.
My Thoughts
5 out of 5 stars
I was drawn to this book because it was marketed as a thriller. There was a quote on the front by Lee Child that said “Shadow Man is everything a thriller should be.”
I’ve only recently been reading thrillers and it is now my go to genre and when I was saw this on readers first I just had to enter to win and copy. When I think of thrillers I think of it being fast paced with twists and turns you don’t expect. Shadow Man in my own opinion it’s too slow paced to be a thriller and there was more focus on character building.
Why then you might ask did I give it 5 stars ? The easy answer to that is Alan Drew’s writing. I adored his writing and couldn’t stop reading. The story is mainly told from the POV of the Detective. I really enjoyed his POV and the more I learned about him the more I liked his character and I did feel so so sorry for him. Some of the chapters came from the killer and Alan Drew wrote it in such a lyrical, flowing and chilling way.
I read this in 2 or 3 days and really enjoyed the story. I wanted to keep reading and learn more about the characters. I loved Alan Drew’s writing and I wasn’t ready for it to be over.
I highly recommend this book to everyone. One of my favourite reads so far in 2018.