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Summary: This series will be one of the most popular in the genre
Review: Jonathon King was the well deserved winner of the Edgar in 2003 for Best First Novel. The question always arises-can he again write a superior and compelling murder mystery? On evaluating his third book, SHADOW MAN, the answer is a resounding yes.
Max Freeman, ex- Philadelphia PD and current PI works for his friend, Miami lawyer Billy Manchester. Freeman is asked to look into the deaths of a father and his two sons. The murder apparently occurred in the Everglades in 1923. The three worked in the construction crew and were never heard from again. Letters were found by a descendant pointing to a possible murder. It is up to Max Freeman to get to the truth. However, shadowy figures try to warn him off the investigation. His very life may be at stake.
I predict that the Max Freeman series will prove to be among the most popular in the mystery genre. The writing is strong and sure. The depiction of the locale is vivid and brings a strong sense of immediacy. The character of Max is both realistic and sympathetic to the reader. Pacing is brisk and the length is perfect for a long leisurely afternoon read. Another winner by Jonathon King.
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Summary: Maybe you had to read the other books first
Review: SHADOW MEN is not a good place to start reading Jonathon King. It takes forever to get going, and the reader is trying to hold on to all these characters through re-caps (Max, Billy, Sherry and Nate) all of whom, as far as i could tell, had far more fasicnating things happen to them in previous volumes of the series, to which King alludes again and again. I found the whole thing far-fetched and the preciousness of the conceit, that these mysterious letters from the past, which hint at much but stop just short of saying anything definite, is the modern-day equivalent of the "dying message" popularized by Ellery Queen during mystery's Golden Age. Yes, there is a lot of local color and the Everglades is an interesting site, filled with colorful characters. But I didn't find anything new in this book, just a lot of warmed over second rate James Lee Burke-isms. However, the story gets better after the first hundred pages and by the end, you can't help but applaud as Max goes out on a limb to help Mark Mayes and to see justice done, while Sherry ponders what to do about a female colleague who's getting beat up pretty bad by another cop.
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Summary: Glades and glitz, atmosphere and action
Review: The prologue to the latest Max Freeman novel homes in on a father and his two sons as they are hunted down and shot while trying to escape the first road-building project in the Everglades. So, as ex-cop Max sits in his lawyer friend Billy Manchester's Miami penthouse apartment reading 80-year-old letters from Cyrus Mayes, the reader already knows the man's fate.Building the Tamiami Trail across the broad Everglades swamp in 1923 was a slow slog through heat, muck, snakes, alligators and, maybe worst of all, insects. Mayes' recently recovered letters tell of captive labor and runaway workers who are never heard from again, so Cyrus' grandson suspects foul play. But he wants to know for sure. And the road-building company (which could still be legally liable) has stonewalled him. Intrigued, Max takes the letters back to the refuge of his sturdy Glades shack, where a suspicious early morning fire adds to his troubles without distracting his investigation. He braves the closed world of Glades natives to leave a message for the enigmatic Nate Brown (previously seen in "Visible Darkness"), meets up with his cop girlfriend Sherry Richards (who's preoccupied with an extracurricular case concerning an abusive stalker cop), and then drops off a piece of his burned shack to a forensics lab. While the Mayes case stays in the forefront, King weaves in his subplots seamlessly, revisiting his old demons and working out his present. Trailed by hired thugs, Max pursues his leads into the past and through generations. The action culminates in an all-out boat chase through the Glades, which resonates with the snap of alligator jaws and the hum of mosquitoes. Fine hard-and-soft-boiled prose, with quirky, believable characters, and an atmosphere that veers from the timeless mystery of the Everglades to the up-to-the-minute dazzle of the urban coast, King's series continues to shine.
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Summary: Third In The Series: Shadow Men by Jonathon King
Review: This third novel in the series finds Max Freeman still living his self imposed exile deep in the Florida Everglades. Picking up a short time after the events depicted in "A Visible Darkness," Max is still able to live in his shack. His isolation, except for the occasional private investigator job for his friend and attorney, Billy Manchester, has allowed him to slowly come to grips with his actions extensively detailed in the first novel "The Blue Edge Of Midnight." However, the past still bothers him and he sees his pain reflected in the eyes of Billy's latest client. Mark Mayes is a college student in Atlanta, Georgia and is considering going into the seminary. But, before he can do that, he needs answers about a painful family legacy. Mayes has found a number of letters, yellowed and brittle with age, in his grandmother's attic. The letters seem to indicate that his great-grandfather and two uncles who died in 1923 while working for a private company trying to build the first road across the Everglades may have been murdered. That road became the Tamiami Trail and like his long dead relatives something rarely spoken of in his family. If they were murdered, possibly on behalf of the company that was the law to itself in the merciless swamp, Mayes wants to take legal action against the company assuming it or some form of it still exists. The great building projects have always taken many lives. The Tamiami Trail is no different in that it too is built upon the bones of the dead. But, as Max reads the copies of the letters again in lantern light in his shack, he too is struck by the power of the letters and the message of fear and desperation they convey. Something sinister was at work then and is still at work today resulting on an attempt on Max's life and other efforts to warn him off even before he starts work. It soon becomes clear that there are some that don't care to have the past uncovered and will stop at nothing to keep it that way. While little is added to the development of the Max Freeman character, the author manages to skillfully build on the characters of others by way of two engaging secondary storylines involving characters familiar to readers of this series. Written with a prose style that reminds the reader of James Lee Burke where a few words create a powerful mental image, Jonathon King consistently brings the beauty of the Everglades alive as well as the despair and evil that lurks in the hearts of some. This author is one of the very few that can pull the reader in so deeply into his world while he delivers a complex and twisting tale of murder and deceit. His books are escapist literature and instead are far from it as they leave mental images not soon forgotten.
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