My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Thursday, September 19, 2024

Review: The Shadowmaker

The Shadowmaker The Shadowmaker by T.J. Champitto
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: ****

A Solid Crime Adventure/Thriller Story

This is the first of a new action/ thriller series. The main character, Henry Sirola, is a master thief working for an eastern European mob organization. He and long time bestie, Darius, are recruited for the score of a lifetime, which naturally seems too good to be true. Henry’s old flame (Isabell) is also along for the ride and gives us the possibility for a little romantic reconciliation. When it all inevitably goes sideways, the team scrambles to fix everything, going up against government corruption and a Brazilian crime syndicate. Along the way, we see secrets/mystery and betrayal that keeps you guessing with a few late reveals, but nothing too surprising. Henry is a very likable, and somewhat flawed, anti-hero that is also and FBI informant (making him sort of a good guy - right?) … which to be honest, I am not clear on how that advances the plot, which for most of the story seems to be a legitimate salvage and sale … the only question is why are crime lords involved at all. At any rate, the action and pacing is good enough to easily pull your through the story without losing interest and keep it entertaining. The ending was a bit ambiguous, although for the most part satisfying.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#TheShadowmaker #FreeAudiobookCodes

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.