Shadows: A Novel [Hardcover]

Edna Buchanan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 21, 2005

The Pulitzer Prize-winning "Queen of Crime" (USA Today) follows up Cold Case Squad with an explosive second novel about a dedicated, complicated homicide unit that breathes new life into old cases.

In order to block a high-rise developer's plans to bulldoze the Shadows -- a gorgeous 1920s mansion in Miami -- a resourceful young preservationist approaches the police department's Cold Case Squad. Years ago, the high-profile owner of the Shadows was murdered and the crime has remained unsolved. Never content to let a trail stay cold, Lt. K. C. Riley and her detectives visit the long-abandoned pioneer house and discover a heartbreaking new mystery. But the people tied to the Shadows are evasive and paranoid, haunted by lies, guilt, and tangled pasts. Only one thing is clear: the killer is still out there, and the old, cold case is hotter than ever. . . .

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Saving Shadows, a historic Miami waterfront estate that's about to be bulldozed—annoying preservationists and reopening a 45-year-old unsolved murder—isn't enough to rescue its novel namesake. Staying in familiar Miami territory, Buchanan brings back the crew from Cold Case Squad for this outing: Miami PD Sgt. Craig Burch and ragtag detectives Sam Stone, Pete Nazario and, this time, Joe Corso. Watched closely by their lieutenant and by the press, Burch and posse focus on the unsolved 1961 murder of Pierce Nolan, a legendary local scion and former mayor killed by a shotgun blast. With the help of Kiki Courtelis, an anxious preservationist, the team gains access to his long-shuttered estate—only to conveniently discover an antique trunk full of infant corpses. Subplots are forced: Nazario has instant feelings for Kiki; Stone spontaneously avenges the death of his parents; the workings of an illegal adoption ring comes to light. Retired journalist Buchanan (You Only Die Twice) is a longtime Miami resident who won a Pulitzer Prize for her police reporting, but this outing lacks her usual attention to plot and detail. And there's not enough emotional motivation for cozy fans or real estate porn for historic house junkies. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Buchanan returns to the Miami specialized police unit she premiered in last year's Cold Case Squad. She returns also to the cop humor and interjected war stories that she has been known for since her newspaper days. (Sometimes, though, her set-pieces, delivered as monologues in too perfect a style, with no interruptions by the listeners, seem unrealistic.) On the second time around for the Cold Case detectives, a woman seeking to preserve Shadows, a historic Miami mansion, tells the detectives that the 1961 murder of the then-owner of the property, a former mayor of Miami, will never be solved if the manse is bulldozed. The cops agree to search the house, one of the few South Florida houses with a basement, and, in a winningly chilling scene, find a cache of mummified human infants. This horrific discovery leads from a cold case to an ongoing one. Fast, funny, and shocking--all the characteristics of vintage Buchanan. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1ST edition (June 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743250559
• ISBN-13: 978-0743250559
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,175,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very good read!, July 29, 2005

By 

L. J. Roberts (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shadows: A Novel (Hardcover)

Buchanan, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, has woven the past and the present into multi-layered story with interesting characters, excellent dialogue and very good suspense. I was involved from the first sentence and didn't put it down until I'd read the last. Buchanan is an author who deserves much more attention than she receives. Her books aren't bloody, brutal or depressing; they are human, captivating and always worth reading.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars terrific police procedural, June 29, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shadows: A Novel (Hardcover)

In Miami preservationist Kiki Courtelis visits the police department's Cold Case Squad to investigate the murder of 1950s city Mayor Pierce Nolan in front of his home in 1961. Kiki informs the cops that if they fail to act, the most famous unsolved case in the state will remain that way forever because developers have bulldozers ready to tear down Nolan's home the Shadows. She also admits that the Cold Case Squad is her last hope to save the elegant but abandoned 1920s style house from progress.

Sergeant Burch reluctantly leads his team on a search of the premises, but is stunned when they find a box containing the remains of seven babies that died four decades ago. DNA testing proves that Pierce sired none of the infants.

While much of the squad is morbidly fascinated with the infanticide, Police Officer Sam Stone works a more personal cold case, the murders of his parents in 1987. He is astonished to learn that the cop Ray Glover, who informed him and his grandmother that his parents were murdered, died not long afterward in an accident.

Mindful in positive ways of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct, the two prime subplot cases never intersect yet both grips the audience for differing reasons. Readers like most of the cold case squad and the city will be ghoulishly mesmerized by the murders of the former mayor and the babies; on the other hand the audience and the city will empathize with Sam's need for closure as his inquiries lead towards a conspiratorial cover-up by Miamians, but who and why appears just out of reach. Edna Buchanan writes a terrific police procedural.

Harriet Klausner

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting double-story novel, June 7, 2006

By 

Tina Myers "book worm" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shadows: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

the first time reading this author for me, and what drew me to her is her pulitzer-prize winner status. Ms. Buchanan spent many years writing gritty crime stories for Miami newspapers, and her knowledge of the seedy underside of Miami is evident throughout this book. Her story is one of several that follow detectives in the Miami PD Cold Case Squad. Two separate stories are told in this book, one having to do with the murder of a young black couple in their barbecue restaurant, long believed to be a robbery gone bad. However, the couple's son, now grown up and a detective on this Cold Case Squad, has never believed his parents were simply unlucky victims, and small clues, overlooked initially, cause this case to explored again and ultimately solved. The second story features the imminent demolition of a historic Miami landmark, the Shadows, a mansion built by a notorious rumrunner in the 30s. The Cold Case Squad is brought into the story when they delve into the mysterious shooting death of the homeowner many years before, and, during the course of their search of the property, discover 7 dead infants in a trunk in the Shadows' cellar. Who are these babies? Were they somehow related to the murder of the homeowner? The stories are told simultaneously, and it's a little tricky sometimes to keep them straight - add to that a plethora of characters, and the confusion multiplies. Buchanan's writing style is more reporter-ish than author-ish, as well, which I found a little off-putting. However, both of these stories were very cleverly told, and the characters, despite being a big group, are well drawn and very funny. Recommended.