THE SHADOW - James Patterson and Brian Sitts


 I'd heard that bestselling author James Patterson had written a new "The Shadow" novel and, being a fan of the pulp era literature, I wanted to check it out so I picked up a copy at my local library.

Lamont Cranston and his girlfriend Margo Lane are out on a date in the 1930's.  Each has something special to tell the other.  Lamont plans to ask Margo to marry him and Margo plans to tell him that she's pregnant.  But before either can get to the right moment, Lamont realizes that the food has been poisoned.  Planning for something like this, since he is, after The Shadow, he rushes the two of them to a secret lab.

Nearly 150 years in Lamont's future, teenager Maddy Gomes gets a strange request to meet from a lawyer.  She has inherited something special and unusual. She makes her way to a warehouse and discovers that what she's inherited is the body of a man, frozen. A doctor tells her that he's inherited the care for this body from his father who inherited it from his father, and so on, and now that she's here he can finally unfreeze the man, who turns out to be Lamont Cranston.

Maddy can't believe it.  She's been a huge fan of the old Shadow stories and know everything there is no know about them (she happens to have a couple little Shadow-like powers) and never believed that someone named Lamont Cranston actually existed.

Lamont and Maddy find Margo and unfreeze her.  It is not a pleasant future.  The separation between the wealthy and the poor has grown even wider since their day and the poor are in an even worse state.  To complicate matters, The Shadow's arch nemesis, Shiwan Khan, is the leader of the community and he knows that The Shadow has awakened and will stop at nothing to stop him ... again.

There's a secret to Maddy (can anyone possibly guess what it might be?!) and she'll play a pivotal role in helping the Shadow and Margo defeat Khan.

I've never read a James Patterson book before this.  That's a little hard to imagine since he puts out three or four a year, but true none-the-less. It's easy to see why his short, pot-boiler chapters get readers hooked. But there's not a lot of grit in this action-packed but fluffy thriller.

Bringing The Shadow back from the dead (literally) is a bit pointless.  While it's been a long time since I read a Shadow novel, there was nothing noir-ish or pulp-ish about this Shadow.  And not oonly does he use his simple clouding-men's-minds ability, he has developed new ones! Like creating a ball of fire from nothing to throw at Khan!

What's the point?  Why not just create a totally new superhero?  Long time Shadow fans aren't likely to take well to this because this is nothing like The Shadow.

There's really no depth to any of the characters and things like the new abilities really push the envelope of willing-suspension-of-disbelief.

Overall, I was underwhelmed.  The second book is being released and I already have an ARC of the book so I will give it a read.  Hopefully it's a stronger story.

Looking for a good book? The Shadow by James Patterson and Brian Sitts doesn't much resemble The Shadow of the early 20th century pulps.  If you're just a fan of Patterson, you might enjoy this.  If you're a fan of The Shadow, you might want to avoid this.

2-1/2 stars

* * * * * *

The Shadow

authors: James Patterson and Brian Sitts

series: The Shadow #1

publisher: Grand Central Publishing

ISBN: 9781538703953

paperback, 400 pages

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