I love Alex North’s writing. I was completely riveted listening to The Shadows, just like I was with his first book, but I can understand the mixed reviews I’ve read.
This book follows Paul Adams coming back to his hometown to visit his dying mother. He’s still riddled with guilt about his role in events from his childhood when he and his best friend became friends with Charlie Crabtree—a decision that ultimately left someone dead in such a horrendous murder that the case became infamous, bolstered by the fact that Charlie mysteriously disappeared after. Now Detective Amanda Beck is working a copy cat case that leads her to a message board where someone with the user name CC (and some number I don’t remember) seems to be pulling the strings. Told in alternating POVs, it’s not until their paths overlap that both Paul and Amanda begin to unravel the pieces of the mystery that reveal what happened that day years ago and who’s behind the new killings.
The Shadows has many interesting themes. Lucid dreaming, first love, long-buried town secrets, family dysfunction and the roles we each try to play, and the way urban legends can grow legs of their own. The audio for this book was fantastic. I honestly couldn’t stop listening. I had to know what was going to happen to next. A great feeling when reading a thriller. The problem came when those answers weren’t all that satisfying. Some of the twists felt like tricks and others felt like they came out of left field.
This is a problem I have with thrillers. What matters more—the journey or the destination? If I loved the process of reading, shouldn’t that count for a lot? 95% of my experience with this book was positive. But if the point of a story is to lead us to a destination and you end up somewhere you don’t want to be with no ride home, it’s hard to remember the trip fondly.
I would definitely recommend The Shadows (and whole-heartedly recommend the audio version) for the atmosphere and writing craft but if you’re all about the puzzle adding up, you might want to skip this one.
This book follows Paul Adams coming back to his hometown to visit his dying mother. He’s still riddled with guilt about his role in events from his childhood when he and his best friend became friends with Charlie Crabtree—a decision that ultimately left someone dead in such a horrendous murder that the case became infamous, bolstered by the fact that Charlie mysteriously disappeared after. Now Detective Amanda Beck is working a copy cat case that leads her to a message board where someone with the user name CC (and some number I don’t remember) seems to be pulling the strings. Told in alternating POVs, it’s not until their paths overlap that both Paul and Amanda begin to unravel the pieces of the mystery that reveal what happened that day years ago and who’s behind the new killings.
The Shadows has many interesting themes. Lucid dreaming, first love, long-buried town secrets, family dysfunction and the roles we each try to play, and the way urban legends can grow legs of their own. The audio for this book was fantastic. I honestly couldn’t stop listening. I had to know what was going to happen to next. A great feeling when reading a thriller. The problem came when those answers weren’t all that satisfying. Some of the twists felt like tricks and others felt like they came out of left field.
This is a problem I have with thrillers. What matters more—the journey or the destination? If I loved the process of reading, shouldn’t that count for a lot? 95% of my experience with this book was positive. But if the point of a story is to lead us to a destination and you end up somewhere you don’t want to be with no ride home, it’s hard to remember the trip fondly.
I would definitely recommend The Shadows (and whole-heartedly recommend the audio version) for the atmosphere and writing craft but if you’re all about the puzzle adding up, you might want to skip this one.