The Devil's Shadow [Hardcover]

Hugh Holton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

In The Devils Shadow, Commander Larry Cole is confronted with the most beautiful and cunning criminal hes ever faced. Julianna Saint has a reputation for getting anything she wants. Her occupation: international thief. Jake wants her to pull off a nearly impossible heist. Unfortunately the robbery results in the death of mystery writer Greg Ennis. Julianna makes a daring escape, setting Larry Cole, Chicagos Police Chief of Detectives, on her trail. He follows Saint to an estate on Saint Martins Island in the Caribbean, resulting in a struggle to bring down the greatest thief of all time on her own turf.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Larry Cole, Chicago PD chief of detectives, takes on the local mob, petty police bureaucrats, the Vatican, his willful son and a beautiful international master thief who might steal the divorced detective's heart in this welcome addition to an entertaining series featuring predominantly black and always intriguing protagonists and villains. A well-planned bank heist makes fools of Chicago's finest and signals the start of a crime spree launched by upstart mob boss Big Jake Romano, who is looking to bankroll a mob-run casino. A second bank job linked to murdered mystery writer Greg Ennis, an ex-cellmate of Romano's who specialized in mob tell-all books, yields clues that send Cole and Det. Judy Daniels on an undercover Caribbean jaunt after lissome Julianna Saint, a superthief dubbed the Devil's Shadow by the French S–ret‚. They break it off when Daniels's cover is blown, but not before Saint and Cole fall for each other. Back in the Windy City, the mob is out of control, and busy British crime broker Ian Jellicoe has booked Saint for two Chicago jobs one for Romano and one for a high-ranking Vatican bishop that will send Cole's department spinning and bring things to a bloody head. Holton (Red Lightning) bolsters his enjoyably old-fashioned tale and up-to-date twists with an entertaining cast and solid grasp of police procedure. Cole is too often in the right place at the right time, and coincidence and psychic input supply too many answers, but these are minor quibbles. Saint is a welcome arrival and is poised for return fireworks; Cole's son, Butch, will play a larger role in future installments, too. Holton's growing number of fans will gleefully await their return.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Julianna Saint, called L'Ombre du Diable--the Devil's Shadow--is the world's most cunning and successful thief. But when the one-woman crime wave lands in Chicago, she runs into Larry Cole, the Chicago Police Department's Chief of Detectives, and his crack team of sergeants. Complicating Cole's life is Julianna's alliance with Mob boss Jake Romano, who needs the thief's expert help with a monumental bank heist he's planning. After getting wind of the alliance between Julianna and Romano, Cole forms his own alliance with her, although his is of the romantic variety, and it teaches him little, except that she's as beautiful as she is brilliant--witness the fact that the real reason she's in Chicago involves a directive from a high-ranking Vatican official concerning a Chicago museum curator believed to be the antichrist. Holton, a 29-year Chicago PD veteran, writes huge: big, sweeping plots; larger-than-life characters; opulent international settings; and pulse-pounding, beat-the-clock climaxes. Cole has more in common with James Bond than with any real-life cop, but Holton makes it work with breakneck action and rapid pacing. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Forge; 1st edition (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312877846
• ISBN-13: 978-0312877842
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,047,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good installment in this police procedural series, April 15, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Devil's Shadow (Hardcover)

Chicago Mafioso Big Jake Romano hires the world's greatest thief, Julianna "Devil's Shadow" Saint to rob safety deposit box 8697 inside an impenetrable bank vault. Julianna's job is to retrieve a tape that proves Jake murdered Mafia Don Mattoli, a form of fratricide within the community. Julianna succeeds in her endeavor, but a member of her staff kills a homeless man as they leave the scene. The police are a bit disconcerted because nothing of value has been stolen.

Not long afterward, Greg Ennis, a writer investigating the Mafia takes a dive from a skyscraper. Chicago Chief of Detectives Larry Cole and his lieutenant Blackie Silvestri believe someone pushed Ennis out the window. As they begin to investigate, they tie the two cases together, leaving Larry to track the brilliant DEVIL'S SHADOW.

In his eighth police procedural, Larry Cole faces two tough opponents with one having no conscience and the other brilliantly slippery. The story line is fast-paced and loaded with action though some of the dialogue between the players feels contrived especially that of Big Jake and his soldiers. Larry and Blackie remain strong charcaters and Julianna is a fantastic femme fatale whose mind makes her the Valentine of modern day safecracking. Hugh Holton has written another powerful entry in a strong series.

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, July 14, 2002

By 

Tina "Tina" (Montreal, Quebec) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Devil's Shadow (Mass Market Paperback)

Hugh Holton strikes again. I have made a point of reading all of his books and Devil's Shadow proves to be another police thriller in the "can`t put it down category".

Buy this one.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More info please, June 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Devil's Shadow (Hardcover)

I was shocked to read in a previous review on this book that Hugh Holton died recently in Chicago. Does anyone have more information on the circumstances surrounding his death? How old was he? I just discovered his books and had looked forward to many years of entertainment from this talented writer.