Review: Circle of Death (The Shadow Thriller) by James Patterson and Brian Sitts

by Gary Romeo

I was prepared to be disappointed. I envisioned the first sentence of this review: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” After reading and reviewing the first book in the series I really expected to dislike this one as well. BUT… this one is better.

This new novel still takes place in the future (2088), but it starts with a flashback to 1933 and references an actual Shadow pulp adventure. The villain of the story, Rodil Mocquino, is name dropped and The Shadow pulp magazine story is referred to: “A few years after, somebody wrote a novel about Mocquino and his killers. It was called The Voodoo Master. It was really popular at the time – a bestseller – but they got a lot of stuff wrong. I should know. After all, I’m the real Lamont Cranston, which makes me the real Shadow. And I lived it.”

I could throw out quibbles: Walter Gibson (or at least Maxwell Grant) not being mentioned. “Kent Allard” being ignored. And the book still taking place in a dystopian future instead of the 1930s. But the flashback to 1933 was a good start. I’ll give the writing team of James Patterson and Brian Sitts some credit for their bit of research.

The Voodoo Master story is recapped in the first four preliminary chapters. Lamont Cranston is re-telling the story to his great-great-great-great granddaughter Maddy Gomes, who was introduced in the first book by Patterson and Sitts. She quips, “To be honest, I actually preferred the book. It seemed more believable.”

Lamont, Margo, Maddy, Maddy’s grandmother Jessica, and a Scottish terrier named Bando are all living in Lamont’s New York City mansion. In the first novel, they defeated Shiwan Khan (who ruled the world), and things are more or less back to a functioning democracy. How the Shadow proved ownership of the mansion (Shiwan Khan occupied it in the first book) without raising questions about his age and identity is not mentioned. (And that is the major problem with Patterson and Sitts as authors. They really gloss over all the hard stuff. Things are what they are simply because they type the sentences. It is infuriating to anybody that wants a modicum of logic.)

Anyway, onward… the basic plot of the new book is that the Shadow has discovered a new foe called “the Destroyer of Worlds” who has a secret army called the Command. In a nice touch The Shadow contacts the descendants of some of his former agents. Jericho Druke, Moe Shrevnitz, and Burbank are back on the Shadow team. Later two more recruits, Tapper and Hawkeye show up.

There is a side plot with a murderer killing attendees of the 2088 World’s Fair. This book, despite all the superpowers and the Shadow’s shapeshifting, does have more of a pulpy feel than the first book. I’m not going to provide spoilers, but I will say this book has some interesting twists and turns and the conclusion has me willing to buy a third book.

All in all, this is not a great book, and for most Shadow fans, Patterson and Sitts, will now have two strikes against them. But I’ll go out on a limb, and say this second one was not a complete miss, just a little still in foul territory.

I’ll wait for the third swing. Doubtful of a homerun but maybe we’ll get a base hit. It’s starting to look like that is possible.