Shadow Men

by Jonathon King

Book Overview

Book three of the bestselling Max Freeman mystery series: Max seeks to uncover the twisted truth behind an eighty-year-old triple homicideIn the 1920s, three of Mark Mayes's ancestors left to help... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525948074
• ISBN13: 9780525948070
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: Dutton Books
• Length: 261 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Move over, Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane!

Jonathon King thanks his friend Michael Connelly in the acknowledgments for SHADOW MEN, and it's as if he has somehow channeled Connelly, Dennis Lehane, and John D. MacDonald. All of King's three books are very good, but this one is the best -- weaving a 70-year-old mystery with the tangled past and present of protagonist Max Freeman, a former Philadelphia cop now living in a shack in the Florida Everglades. It's very well plotted, and the secondary characters are nicely drawn. King's descriptions of Florida are so evocative you can hear the waves on the beach and breathe the humid air of the Glades. (Maybe he channels James Lee Burke, too. Don't miss the quick reference to a cap from "Robicheaux's Dock and Bait Shop.") Jonathon King deserves to be much better known than he is. You saw it here first!

Glades and glitz, atmosphere and action

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.

Third Book Relocates Bulk of the Action to the Everglades

I can remember reading King's debut, _The Blue Edge of Midnight_ and thinking it had best debut Edgar written all over it (it did win that award). So I was excited when his second book came out. Unfortunately, I wasn't quite as impressed by this second novel, _A Visible Darkness_. In moving the action away from the Everglades, where his character, Max Freeman, an ex-policeman turned private detective lived in virtual isolation, a lot of the magic of the debut was lost. Apparently, King learned from this because book three focuses again on the Everglades and is a real keeper._Shadow Men_ involves the search for three men, a father and his two sons, who may have been killed 80 years before during the construction of the first road across the Everglades. All that one of their descendants has to go by are a few letters, which hint at some rather nefarious goings-on at the work site. Apparently, the company which had hired the men wasn't so willing to let them go, once they became disenchanted with the tropical heat and the clouds of mosquitoes.Someone in the present day isn't too excited either about Max and his lawyer friend, Billy Manchester, digging into this old mystery. Apparently, if the chain of evolution (what company turned into what company, etc.) can be uncovered, a modern corporation can be held liable for something done decades ago.The action in the novel moves around a lot, but it remains firmly focused on the Everglades themselves, as Max and the old Gladesman Nate Brown, who made an appearance in the second book, search for what may or may not be the final resting place of the three men. There are some great, atmospheric sequences that take place out in the swamps and a memorable scene has Max and Nate crawl into the darkness of a (hopefully) abandoned alligator hole to hide from a couple of men who are tracking them.Coupled with a subplot that involves Max's policewoman girlfriend and a friend of hers, also a policewoman, who is being stalked by her abusive policeman boyfriend, a subplot that connects directly to Max's past, the book literally flies along. It is very fast-moving and, ultimately, very, very satisfying. Easily one of the best mysteries I've read this year.

A special work

In 1923, Cyrus Mayes and his sons Steven and Robert were part of a crew hired to cut the Tamiani Trail deep through the Everglades. Though dangerous, the men received room and board and very high wages. However, the trio vanishes without a trace and no one does anything to learn what happened to the Mayes males.Eight decades later Mark Mayes has found letters that Cyrus sent to his wife before vanishing. He contacts West Palm attorney Billy Manchester to learn what happened to his relatives. Billy arranges for troubled private eye Max Freeman to conduct the search into his current home area. Max begins making inquiries of what he assumes will be impossible to learn what happened, but must have made waves because people have burned down his shack (no loss) and try to kill him when warning fails to make him back off. Instead, the attempts on his life propel the former Philadelphia cop to dig deeper into the Southern Florida wilderness.Ironically, readers know from the beginning what actually happened to the Mayes men as a bit of nasty historical darkness is made visible. In spite of that revelation, the story line grips the audience as they wonder whether Max will uncover the truth and why someone wants him silent on an incident that occurred eighty years ago. The vivid descriptions of the Everglades as usual are top rate in its raw delicate beauty. Though the flashbacks will help new readers understand Max's sorrow, fans will find them disruptive and unnecessary thinking Philadelphia is in Pennsylvania not Florida. Still Jonathon King furbishes another delightful regional private investigative tale.Harriet Klausner