The Empire of Shadows (Tom Braddock Series)

By Richard E. Crabbe

Book Overview

New York City, August 1889: within sight of Madison Square Park, a man lays dead in a darkened construction site. Jim Tupper, a Mohawk of the Iroquois nation, stands over the body. Within minutes he's seen. And as police whistles scream in the night, he runs, knowing there is but one place to hide. With the police hounding him, Tupper makes his way back to the place he knows best-the vast, unsettled Adirondack wilderness. What he finds upon his return is both familiar and strange, a homeland torn by forces from within and without. But after surviving a deadly chase through the streets, back alleys, and underworld haunts of a teeming lower Manhattan, he is home, and Tupper sinks beneath the surface of the Adirondack forest, blending back into the landscape of his youth. But he has left a trail of death behind, a trail leading dangerously close to a fantastic luxury hotel deep in the heart of the wilderness where Captain Tom Braddock and his family are vacationing. Worlds collide when Tom's son becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a young maid at the hotel. To clear him, Braddock has no choice but to find the illusive Indian, a man who knows the forest as well as Tom knows the streets. Determined to catch Tupper no matter the cost, Braddock launches an epic chase through more than a hundred miles of Adirondack lakes, rivers and forest, his guide the legendary Mitchell Sabattis. But not all in the Adirondacks is as it appears. Powerful forces have been set in motion, and as developers make manifest their need to rein in the wilderness, Tom too wonders what the vast forests might hold. Will he find the clues he needs to exonerate his son and put a killer behind bars? Or will the great forest smother its secrets in shadow until its price has been paid in blood?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312206143
• ISBN13: 9780312206147
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.3" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

Meet the next Dan Brown...

I just finished reading both of Brown's books on the New York Times best seller list, and Richard Crabbe's book is every bit as worthy of making the list. Richard combines a descriptive, sometimes violent but thoughtful style of writing that puts you in the hunt for Jim Tupper in what must be a breathtaking part of the country- It's fast, sometimes furious and a quality mystery/thriller... Dan Brown, you have company!

action-packed historical thriller

In August 1889, Mohawk Indian Jim Tupper kills a Manhattan construction site foreman. Although the police catch him, he breaks free when the Black Maria he?s transported in has an accident. He buys a bayonet before making his way by boat to his home in the Adirondack Mountains where he signs on at the logging camp owned and run by industrialist William West Durant.At the same time Tupper is making his way home, New York Detective Bureau Chief Tom Braddock and his family vacation at the Prospect House resort hotel. Tom?s son Mike has taken up with the housemaid Lellie and when she is murdered, the local doctor thinks he is the killer. When Tom learns that via telegraph that Tupper is in the area and the maid was murdered by a bayonet, he believes Tupper is the killer. Tom sets out to bring this killer back so that his son?s name will be cleared, but the savvy Indian leads Tom and the authorities on a difficult chase that leads to a greater tragedy for all concerned.THE EMPIRE OF SHADOWS is an action-packed historical thriller that gives the audience chills, thrills and a sense of adventure. Throughout the whole story line, readers will feel as if they don?t see the full picture because the audience senses there is more than just a killer on a rampage yet everything points to one killer in plain sight. That magic and the ability of Richard E. Crabbe to bring to life a bygone golden age that will never be seen again turns this work into a breathtaking tale.Harriet Klausner