The Shadow

Anyone who is familiar with The Shadow may be dismayed by James Patterson and Brian Sitts’ take on the mysterious pulp/radio hero from the 1930s.

Anyone unfamiliar with The Shadow will likely think the character is dull here and question the allure.

Still, this is James Patterson, creator of Alex Cross and dozens upon dozens of thrillers and other various novels.

But this never feels like The Shadow.

Lamont Cranston is The Shadow. He and longtime companion Margo Lane are enjoying dinner in a swank New York restaurant back in the 1930s. They are poisoned.

Fast-forward 150 years.

The nation and planet are run by the totalitarian regime of a world president. The few haves are rich and have everything. The have-nots are legion and have very little. Food is scarce. Social services nil. The streets smell and are violent. Comedy clubs are underground establishments and comedians speaking against the government and world president are outlaws.

Maddy Goins is a teenager living in this stark world. She is a have-not who learns she has an inheritance … the cryogenically preserved body of Lamont Cranston. With help of the body’s caretaker, Maddy revives Cranston and The Shadow returns.

OK, but he’s not exactly The Shadow from the old radio serials, pulp magazines and comic books (Maddy is a fan of the original Shadow, with a pirated collection of old Shadow memorabilia). The revived Shadow never wore the trench coat, slouch hat or red scarf; he never carried the two big pistols; he never used a maniacal laugh as a calling card; he never uttered the lines “The Shadow knows …”

He does have the power to cloud men’s minds and the power of invisibility. He is not as mysterious about his ways as the traditional Shadow. He also develops new fairly ridiculous powers later in this book (yes, far more ridiculous than the powers of mind control and invisibility, which may just be another dimension of mind control).

Maddy has some powers, too.

As does the world president … who may be connected to The Shadow’s arch-enemy.

Part of the fun and allure of The Shadow has always been the mystery behind him. He’s Lamont Cranston but he’s not Lamont Cranston. He has strange powers and a mission gained from his time in the East. His pre-Shadow days are a blur of misdeeds. Did he love Margo Lane or was she a good soldier in his war on crime?

There’s almost no mystery about the Patterson Shadow. He’s an open book. He can barely control his responses, let alone formulate a plan to stop the world president. The Shadow, who goes by Lamont throughout this book, seems to stumble into his discoveries and successes.

Patterson and Sitts create an interesting take on The Shadow but old fans will miss the mystery of the original Shadow and new readers will miss altogether what The Shadow can be.

Who knows what makes The Shadow great … Patterson and Sitts do not know.