Book Review: Warrior in the Shadows

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Warrior in the Shadows     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Marcus Wynne
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Series: Dale Miller and/or Charley Payne # 2
Forge, Sep 2002, $24.95, 352 pp.

Alfie Woodward combines the skills that he learned as an Australian Special Air Forces soldier with his Aboriginal spiritual beliefs to form an incredibly successful killing machine. He leaves behind quite a crime scene starring his latest victim, Minneapolis banker Madison Simmons as Alfie not only paints an Aboriginal painting using his victim’s blood, he also strips meat and organs from the corpse, fries them, and eats them.

Police Sergeant Bobby Lee Martaine heads the murder investigation that includes his military buddy Charley Payne as a civilian contract forensic photographer. Charley takes his copies of the weird photos to his artist girlfriend Mara Steinway who introduces him to Aboriginal art expert Kativa Patel. She explains the murder ritual of killing with a blunt object and eating the deceased to reduce their afterlife prowess, and concludes the portrait is the signature of the killer. When Bobby, his wife, and eight year old child is murdered, Charley knows that he has his own ritual to perform on the Aboriginal killer.

Warrior in the Shadow is an exciting police procedural that grabs the audience with its opening salvo about Madison being eaten and never lets go until the final confrontation to include Kativa in the Outback. The superb story line is a police procedural thriller that enables the audience to observe a different much greater depth side than Crocodile Dundee provided. Marcus Wynne lives up to his surname with a winner that genre fans will devour, but not with bacon.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner