Dunne, Nov 2003, 24.95, 384 pp.
ISBN 0312206143
In August 1889, Mohawk Indian Jim Tupper kills a Manhattan construction site foreman. Although the police catch him, he breaks free when the Black Maria he's transported in has an accident. He buys a bayonet before making his way by boat to his home in the Adirondack Mountains where he signs on at the logging camp owned and run by industrialist William West Durant.
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At the same time Tupper is making his way home, New York Detective Bureau Chief Tom Braddock and his family vacation at the Prospect House resort hotel. Tom's son Mike has taken up with the housemaid Lellie and when she is murdered, the local doctor thinks he is the killer. When Tom learns that via telegraph that Tupper is in the area and the maid was murdered by a bayonet, he believes Tupper is the killer. Tom sets out to bring this killer back so that his son's name will be cleared, but the savvy Indian leads Tom and the authorities on a difficult chase that leads to a greater tragedy for all concerned.
THE EMPIRE OF SHADOWS is an action-packed historical thriller that gives the audience chills, thrills and a sense of adventure. Throughout the whole story line, readers will feel as if they don't see the full picture because the audience senses there is more than just a killer on a rampage yet everything points to one killer in plain sight. That magic and the ability of Richard E. Crabbe to bring to life a bygone golden age that will never be seen again turns this work into a breathtaking tale.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
