Very well plotted out thriller. Characters, plot lines and the story kept me reading. Very well done book.

It was dynamic of Marc and Lucy that keeps you reading. Their dedication to duty at all costs that binds the spell. In a time as uncertain and scary as today, this serves an all too familiar plate of what if’s come to light. Suspenseful and terrifying. A pathogen, a scientist a race to secure a virus. It’s all familiar. It what we are living . It’s a future not too off the mark.

SHADOW is the fourth novel in James Swallow’s series featuring Marc Dane, an ex-MI6 field technician who now works as part of a privately-funded covert ops unit dedicated to upholding justice and taking on global terrorist threats.

Marc’s partner in the field is Lucy Keyes, a former Special Forces sniper, and together they are drawn into the hunt for a missing scientist Lucy once helped defect from North Korea, and the dark legacy she left behind.

As they travel from Southeast Asia to Iceland and across Europe, Marc and Lucy uncover the scheme of a murderous ultranationalist who is planning lethal biological attacks in North Africa and Europe to escalate division and cause chaos.

Full review in the September edition of The Big Thrill

I liked this, but the hundreds of ratings and reviews speak for themselves. If you like thrillers or this author, this one is probably a good choice.

Thanks very much for the free review copy!!

Absolutely non stop action. If you like a thriller loaded with fighting, hand to hand combat, international intrigue, intergovernmental politics, shadowy organizations, complicated science, heavy handed international businesses, and a lot of machismo, this thriller is for you. It deals with so many contemporary issues (pandemic, government military contractor, white supremacy) and is deeply international in its scope.

I enjoyed it, however I think I would’ve like it even more if I’d started at the beginning of the series. When I requested it from NetGalley, I didn’t realize it was the fourth book in the Marc Dane series (my bad! Not paying close enough attention). I also would’ve liked more description and detail about the characters’ motivations, but people who want a ripped from the headlines thriller that grabs you from the beginning and never gives you a chance to breathe (or who have already read the first three in the series!) will be fans in spite of this.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in return for my honest review.

The fourth in the Marc Dane series, but it can be read as a standalone. As gripping and compulsive as ever, and well plotted. A right wing extremist escapes from capture in the first bit of the book, then a woman and her family are kidnapped. A group of migrants from Libya come next, and this is where Marc and Lucy appear and come to their rescue. Just as the reader thinks things are calming down, the excitement begins again, in other words it is a typical James Swallow novel, and I love it. Highly recommended, it is a great read. .