Customer Reviews

Shadow Dancers

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Herbert Lieberman was one of the first writers that I read back in the early 70's, I read a book called "Crawlspace" and I still remember it today, very scary and suspensful. This book "Shadow Dancers" was every bit as good as anything Thomas Harris or James Patterson has written. Personally I like his writing style better, the characters are fully fleshed out and interesting, and the suspense is excrutiating. Mr. Lieberman can literally make you lose all sense of time.

...This is a harrowing, sit on the edge of your seat, suspense novel written by one of the best, Herbert Lieberman.

The characters come alive, they jump right off the page. Not a book that you can put down. I read it through the very first time. Then read it again!

I'm thrilled that I have found this book again, it's worth hunting down. Just don't loan it out to anyone!

Investigation techniques described in this story are way behind what was available when this book was written i.e. in the late 1980s in the US. There is no mention in the novel of psychological profiling, a technique which really gloomed in the early 1970s under the leadership of the FBI and was widely used with success by the late 1980s.

In fact, it is difficult to imagine that an investigation of a series of over 10 savage murders (18 by the end of the book) would not have involved the FBI in any way or form, not even for technical advice.

The basic intrigue about two murderers, one copying the other, is not realistic. It is known in the police world that details of a murder scene are not revealed to media to prevent copycat. There are other inconsistencies in the story. Anyone who has read "Mind Hunter" by John Douglas and remembers some of it knows too much about police work to enjoy reading "Shadow Dancers".

Overall a very average read.