Customer Reviews

Valley of the Shadow (Without the Dawn)

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Although I have enjoyed books by Roger Elwood in the past, I found this one to be confusing in both style and storyline. The characters talk and behave as if they lived in medival Europe. There are even knights on horses; yet, this story takes place in modern times and supposedly deals with biological warfare. A biological threat is the crux of the story but Elwood weaves subplots throughout the novel revealing very little about the main idea. Because of the clashing styles and the scant attention given to the main plot, this book has a sense of "unreality" that makes it hard for the reader to enjoy or understand the story.

I've never read Elwood before, and I probably never will again; this book left a less than pleasant taste in my mouth. The story is set in 1994, but the characters talk with a verbose, Old English speech pattern; thus, everybody seems to talk the exact same way. The all but absurd style of dialog really puts a damper on character development. Then again, there isn't much development here to dampen. Book One wasn't available to me, so I had to grasp a little with the plot in reading this one, but I could have dealt with that just fine if I would have gotten to know some people along the way. At first I figured that the absence of character depth was because they were all developed in Book One, and that was my loss . . . but by the end, I was seriously doubting that any of these characters were ever given more than names. The hero is witty, intelligent, determined to save the day, and respected by everyone else (including the very sick villain) . . . overall, the epitome of "good guy." But there's not much more to him than that. And the bad guy is . . . *really* bad. Somebody reviewed a different book in the series and said they found these in the children's section? These are NOT children's books! There are several very ADULT innuendo's (or just statements), and the villain is not just a power-hungry murderer--he's a whole lot more. But all in all, even if the sexual appetite(s) of the villain hadn't ruined the book . . . How can you create a cliffhanger if nobody cares about the hero? And how can you care about a hero you don't really know? Fortunately, I only paid a dime for this book! I also bought Three and Four (also for a dime apiece), but I won't be reading them. I simply can't make myself care.