Shadow Man

April 24, 2017
Set in Southern California in the mid-1980s, Drew’s entertaining, well-constructed second novel (after Gardens of Water) subverts action hero tropes. Ben Wade, a former big-city cop, moved back to his small hometown of Santa Elena to try to save his marriage after being shot on the job. Although that didn’t work out, he and his ex both still live there, taking care of their teen daughter, Emma. His quiet life is disrupted when a serial killer makes his way to Santa Elena and strangles a local woman. Around the same time, a local teen, an undocumented immigrant, kills himself, and Wade’s investigation into the latter stirs up some of his own memories. He’s joined in his investigations by medical examiner Natasha Betencourt; a potential romance between them seems to have stalled. As they dive deeper into both cases, Wade and Betencourt are forced to start looking into Wade’s own past as well. The darkness that affects Wade, a lone wolf who rides horses for pleasure, forms the heart of the story, and Drew draws it out nicely while still moving the plot forward. Agent: Dorian Karchmar, WME Entertainment.

Caught between his drive to catch a serial killer and his need to hide secrets from his past, Detective Ben Wade is a complicated man. Narrator Will Damron keeps listeners engaged as he paints a picture of the fear caused by the Shadow Man and a secondary investigation of a local swim coach. The story takes place in the late 1980s in Southern California, before DNA databases, smartphones, and social media. Yet many of the issues addressed, including illegal immigration and criminal cover-ups, are still timely. Told from the alternating perspectives of Detective Wade and forensics specialist Natasha Betencourt, this police procedural is ultimately about the power of truth and the inability to escape one's past. K.S.M. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine