Circle of Death: A Shadow Thriller

The Shadow: Circle of Death by James Patterson and Brian SittsAs I said in my review of the first new Shadow book by Patterson and Sitts, I firmly believe they should have a lot more respect for the source material. I have no problem with taking the Shadow in a slightly different direction, but to do so by making belittling remarks about the pulps and radio shows isn’t the way to do so. Without the pulps and the radio shows, Patterson and Sitts wouldn’t have this character to work with to start with. So I will ding them one star because of that.The story is not bad. The Shadow decides that for him to fight crime, he’s going to need to rebuild his group of agents. And who better to select than the descendants of the very agents who used to be his inner circle? He reaches out to the great-great-grandchildren of Jericho Druke, Burbank, Moe Shrevnitz, Tapper, and Hawkeye.An aside here: I’m really wondering why the authors didn’t go with Harry Vincent, as he is introduced first in the first Shadow Pulp.By the middle of the novel. All of the men have arrived and are back at work. There is a supervillain, known only as Pangrusak Jagad: Destroyer of Worlds, that is causing worldwide genocide and bioterrorism. The Shadow is determined to find and stop this person even before the President of the Americans arrives to demand that he do so.The story has a lot of action, with an intertwined secondary mystery. I thought perhaps the ending was totally unnecessary. The villain was fine as is and would have presented a better story, but maybe that is just a matter of taste.I give the story 4 stars.Quoth the Raven...

I only read this second book because James Patterson was the author. I remember all of his storylines when I read each book in the series but for the life of me I couldn’t place this one and I know I read it.This book was slow but it built up to a fast and good storyline until the ending. I think - - could’ve stayed dead and a new villain show up in the next book.I’m thinking since I don’t follow all superhero books/movies that’s why this book took me so long to read, when Mr. Patterson’s book I usually pound out in a day.

it ok

Well worth read!

I’m such a big fan of the Shadow as a character that I wouldn’t pass up this novel, even though I can’t say I was super-impressed by the first one. I’d hoped that, after Patterson & Sitts got their world-building done in the first novel, this one would be better. Unfortunately, that hasn’t turned out to be the case.Frankly, this novel is a bit of a mess. It feels like two stories that have been crammed into one. First, you have this strange beast killing young people at the World’s Fair in New York City. Second, you have the “Destroyer of Worlds” who is slaughtering people across Eurasia. Neither of these two plots seems well thought out and neither is developed well. Maybe they could have each made a decent novel of their own with the proper work put in. As it is, they are crammed together and make little sense.Lamont, Margo, and Maddy are fair enough characters despite my irritation at their proliferation of powers. I even enjoyed the various appearances of Dache. What rankles is the poor use of science fiction tropes since this book is set 60 years in the future. Junky supersonic jets, really? And every descendent of every former helper of the Shadow is exactly like their forebearer from 150 years ago. Seriously?I so much hoped that this would be a reinvention of a great character that would spawn a new, long-running series of novels. As it is, it feels like a quick cash-grab by people who aren’t even willing to put the time in to create something reasonable. Yes, I know this is SF/fantasy, but respect the genre and respect the fans.

I can almost see a follow up book in the near future. I really I really enjoyed both of these books. they kept my interest rate up to the end.

This is a great read if you’re into futuristic genre. I’m not but it was ok. I scanned thru a lot of it and some of it was interesting, some not. If you enjoy this type of book, you’ll definitely enjoy this one.

As usual, anything by Patterson is good Definitely hard to put down once started.

Well bought this for a change of direction with my reading and wasnt disapointed. Strong story with a twist at the end.

Another great book by the best author by far.

I t was written well it kept you guessing to the end

Love j p books

All Patterson books are good...great price thanks Amazon