Sept. 24, 2010
BOOK REVIEW: 'City in Shadow' Delivers Quirky, Rapid-Fire Big Apple Mystery Entertainment
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Evan Marshall's "City in Shadow" (Severn House Publishers, 192 pages, $27.95), the latest in his Hidden Manhattan Mystery series, features an amateur detective with the probably the most unusual day job in fiction, Anna Winthrop, a Department of Sanitation supervisor.
Anna's the daughter of a billionaire Connecticut businessman who's appalled at her choice of careers, especially since her siblings are a lawyer, a doctor and a stockbroker. Anna was a debutante who gave it all up to join the Sanitation Department on an entry-level basis -- although the reader can suspend disbelief long enough to realize that few garbage collectors have the financial resources to call in sick and fly down to Florida, as Anna does in "City in Shadow."
The latest in a series ("Death Is Disposable," "Evil Justice," "Dark Alley," ) that gets its name from Marshall's placing his characters in a relatively unknown, unusual architectural treasure in Manhattan, "City In Shadow" includes a number of plots and subplots in a relatively short book. The main plot has Anna investigating a sex trafficking ring that comes to her attention when a frightened woman in a pickup truck leaves a note reading "HELP ME" outside Anna's Hell's Kitchen apartment on W. 43rd Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues.
The truck is there to convey an antique desk Anna has sold to two Slavic looking men and their passenger -- a beautiful Eastern European women being taken to Little Odessa, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Anna's upstairs neighbor Nettie Clouchet, a free-lance journalist and blogger, knows Ukrainian because of her ex-boyfriend, Eddie Pushkar, a Ukrainian-American cop.
Anna has a NYPD cop boyfriend, too, Santos Reyes, who tries to dissuade her from playing detective, in vain, of course. Anna and Nettie pose as maids from a temp service to get inside a luxury Times Square apartment building that plays a big role in the sex-trafficking scheme.
Another plot has Anna's visiting cousin from Cincinnati, Patti, prowling the streets of Times Square and Hell's Kitchen, the gentrifying area where Anna lives and works.
"City in Shadow" has plenty of action and character development, plus the bonus of the Manhattan Mystery architectural locale, this time inside Grand Central Terminal.
About the Author
Evan Marshall is an internationally recognized expert on fiction writing and author of the "Hidden Manhattan" and "Jane Stuart and Winky" mystery series. A former book editor, for 27 years he has been a leading literary agent specializing in fiction. His Marshall PlanŽ Novel Writing Software, written with Martha Jewett, is an adaptation of his bestselling Marshall PlanŽ series.
Author's website: www.EvanMarshallMysteries.com
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BOOK REVIEW: 'City in Shadow' Delivers Quirky, Rapid-Fire Big Apple Mystery Entertainment
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Evan Marshall's "City in Shadow" (Severn House Publishers, 192 pages, $27.95), the latest in his Hidden Manhattan Mystery series, features an amateur detective with the probably the most unusual day job in fiction, Anna Winthrop, a Department of Sanitation supervisor.
Anna's the daughter of a billionaire Connecticut businessman who's appalled at her choice of careers, especially since her siblings are a lawyer, a doctor and a stockbroker. Anna was a debutante who gave it all up to join the Sanitation Department on an entry-level basis -- although the reader can suspend disbelief long enough to realize that few garbage collectors have the financial resources to call in sick and fly down to Florida, as Anna does in "City in Shadow."
The latest in a series ("Death Is Disposable," "Evil Justice," "Dark Alley," ) that gets its name from Marshall's placing his characters in a relatively unknown, unusual architectural treasure in Manhattan, "City In Shadow" includes a number of plots and subplots in a relatively short book. The main plot has Anna investigating a sex trafficking ring that comes to her attention when a frightened woman in a pickup truck leaves a note reading "HELP ME" outside Anna's Hell's Kitchen apartment on W. 43rd Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues.
The truck is there to convey an antique desk Anna has sold to two Slavic looking men and their passenger -- a beautiful Eastern European women being taken to Little Odessa, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Anna's upstairs neighbor Nettie Clouchet, a free-lance journalist and blogger, knows Ukrainian because of her ex-boyfriend, Eddie Pushkar, a Ukrainian-American cop.
Anna has a NYPD cop boyfriend, too, Santos Reyes, who tries to dissuade her from playing detective, in vain, of course. Anna and Nettie pose as maids from a temp service to get inside a luxury Times Square apartment building that plays a big role in the sex-trafficking scheme.
Another plot has Anna's visiting cousin from Cincinnati, Patti, prowling the streets of Times Square and Hell's Kitchen, the gentrifying area where Anna lives and works.
"City in Shadow" has plenty of action and character development, plus the bonus of the Manhattan Mystery architectural locale, this time inside Grand Central Terminal.
About the Author
Evan Marshall is an internationally recognized expert on fiction writing and author of the "Hidden Manhattan" and "Jane Stuart and Winky" mystery series. A former book editor, for 27 years he has been a leading literary agent specializing in fiction. His Marshall PlanŽ Novel Writing Software, written with Martha Jewett, is an adaptation of his bestselling Marshall PlanŽ series.
Author's website: www.EvanMarshallMysteries.com
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