Shadows Reel

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The title is inspired by William Butler Yeats' poem "The Second Coming" (quoted throughout the book). Specifically his vision of:

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

Creepy! And both our series heroes, Joe Pickett and Nate Romanowski, have creepazoids to deal with in this dual-plot entry.

In plot one, Joe is dealing with a charred corpse found on Lorne Trumley's ranch. A brief investigation reveals that it's Bert Kizer, a loner scraping a meager living out of being a decent fishing guide. And also that he's been tortured before being murdered. It turns out that just that morning, Joe's wife Marybeth had caught a strange figure dropping off a package at her town library. And it turns out to be a photo album from a World War II bad guy.

Could these things be connected? Well, sure.

In plot two, Nate is on the trail of a different bad guy, Axel Soledad, who in the previous book had assaulted Nate's wife, scared Nate's daughter, and swiped Nates prized falcons. Soledad is (as Yeats would put it) full of passionate intensity. His plan, to be financed by the sale of Nate's falcons, is to sow chaos and anarchy by manipulating Antifa dimwits (who are rioting anyway) into triggering an unstoppable race war.

It's not the best Box book. It's low on outdoorsiness, Box's strong point in my eyes. The ending seems kind of rushed, and people who read this book without reading the previous entry might be a tad confused.

But I'm all caught up with Box's books now!

Well, until two days from now, when a new one is coming out. A throwaway comment in this book might signal a connection between the Pickett series and Box's other series. We'll (eventually) see.


Last Modified 2024-01-16 5:07 AM EDT