Shadow Man - Softcover

A fine character-driven novel that puts in more effort than your usual serial killer yarn * Sunday Sport * Always thrilling and often terrifying, Shadow Man is a descendent of Chandler's The Big Sleep. Underlying the grisly dangers of Drew's novel is the forceful honesty of all good California noir, the necessary and clear-eyed exploration of the innate human truths that should and do scare us. * Claire Vaye Watkins * In Alan Drew's electric new novel, Southern California in the 1980s is so palpable it is almost a character of its own, lucid and relevant. His main character, Detective Ben Wade, is an outsize but knowable force, up there with Marlowe and Jake Gittes. Shadow Man is an enrapturing read from its start to its unpredictable, enthralling finish. -- Daniel Torday * Author of The Last Flight of Poxl West * Excellent, atmospheric . . . [a] superb police procedural . . . [Ben Wade] is but one of many sharply etched characters who help make Shadow Man a stellar achievement, a book that unspools like a dark-toned movie in the reader's mind. * The Wall Street Journal * Part murder mystery, part family drama, Alan Drew's Shadow Man has everything I like in a novel: grit, heart, and nail-biting suspense. It's the sort of magically absorbing novel that keeps you turning the pages and checking the locks on the door. -- Lauren Grodstein * author of A Friend of the Family * Shadow Man is smart, chilling, and impossible to put down, an accomplished thriller by a writer to watch. Alan Drew is a rising star, blending suspense and humanity with consummate style. -- William Landay * Author of Defending Jacob * [Hero Detective Ben Wade investigates with] a clarity and wisdom reminiscent of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch - and there is no higher praise. * Daily Mail * Shadow Man revises the old detective story and turns it in several fascinating directions. Alan Drew writes with precision, subtlety, and a streak of suspense that does not often color the literary novel. * Colum McCann * Wonderfully imagined and wonderfully written, patient but propulsive, serious but suspenseful, grown-up but gripping, Shadow Man is everything a great thriller should be. * Lee Child *

An explosive serial killer thriller perfect for readers of Lee Child, Karin Slaughter and Michael Connelly. 'Wonderfully imagined and wonderfully written, patient but propulsive, serious but suspenseful, grown-up but gripping, Shadow Man is everything a great thriller should be.' Lee Child Southern California, 1986. Detective Ben Wade has returned to his hometown in search of a quieter life and to try to save his marriage. Suddenly the community, with its peaceful streets and neighbourly concerns, finds itself at the mercy of a serial killer who slips through windows and screen doors at night, shattering illusions of safety. As Ben and forensic specialist Natasha Betencourt struggle to stay one step ahead of the killer - and deal with painful episodes in the past - Ben's own world is rocked again by violence. He must decide how far he is willing to go, and Natasha how much she is willing to risk, to rescue the town from a psychotic murderer and a long-buried secret. With eerie, chilling prose, Alan Drew brings us into the treacherous underbelly of a suburban California town in this brilliant novel of suspense; the story of a man, and a community, confronted with the heart of human darkness. 'Wonderfully imagined and wonderfully written, patient but propulsive, serious but suspenseful, grown-up but gripping, Shadow Man is everything a great thriller should be.' - Lee Child 'Excellent, atmospheric . . . [a] superb police procedural . . . [Ben Wade] is but one of many sharply etched characters who help make Shadow Man a stellar achievement, a book that unspools like a dark-toned movie in the reader's mind.' - The Wall Street Journal