Think William Tell Overture...

If you liked the first book The Tracker, then you should really get this one. The action begins right away with Sam Callahan (fresh out of law school) hanging off of a fourth floor balcony trying to escape the assassin who had just murdered his new client and now wants to kill him.
At the same time his girlfriend Natalie (a journalist) is meeting with a whistleblower (she thinks) who instead turns out to be a kidnapper. Next thing she knows she's in the back of a van with a black bag over his head. At first she thinks it's about a story she's working on but soon realizes it's all about Sam.
Meanwhile Sam's mom is once again battling leukemia. At the same time Sam is told that he has 24 hours to find an attorney from New Orleans who may be the father he never met or Natalie dies.
At first I thought "Wow,deja vu!", this really resembles the first book but that's where the similarities end. This author is proving that he is more than a one hit wonder and this series has tons of potential. The writing style is great, the characters are well developed and the plot is complex enough to keep your attention with out becoming confusing.
I won't go into anymore of the story as I don't want to spoil this for anyone.
This book has my HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION!
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25 people found this helpful

Great Story Horrible ending

This is second in a series. The ending is not reasonable. It misrepresents what would be done. It does not fit with the character. It made me regret reading a book I had thoroughly enjoyed up to that time.

4 people found this helpful

Disappointing

The first book in this series showed promise. Although the author seemed a bit of a novice, the plot was engaging and fresh and the protagonist likable. I assumed the author would improve in the second installment, which I eagerly anticipated. What a let down! Book 2 of this series was not believable in any sense. The plot was ridiculous, the action impossible and the characters one-dimensional.

All through the book I kept asking myself what was going on, since only scant motivations and stakes were provided to justify the characters' actions and many of the plot points didn't fit together. Apparently the author had the same problem I did weaving it all together into something that made sense because he came up with a ridiculous ending that was only a proper climax to this novel in that it took the worst flaws of the story and doubled them.

Despite the multitude of action scenes, the book was boring. The story had a lot of flashbacks to melodramatic, introspective scenes that stoped the plot it in its tracks in additional to being painful for the reader. I didn't buy an action novel to listen to chapter after chapter of a man arguing with his dying mother or struggling with his feelings for his girlfriend--especially when they added nothing to the characters or the plot. I felt like I was reading the author's diary instead of his novel. The author spent many pages on an FBI agent (a minor character) dealing with his aging, belligerent father that gave no insight into anything except the author's disdain for the elderly.

The narrator did a good job overall and gave believable voices to the female characters, but the voice and accent he gave to Sam's mother was so hard to listen to that it made these already-unbearable scenes excruciating.

I wont be back for Book 3.

4 people found this helpful

This book fell apart

This book imploded in the last 45 minutes. Avoiding spoilers, I'll just say apparently the author couldn't tie everything together at the end of the story and so he just came up with nonsense. After The Tracker, I had hopes this might be a decent series. Disappointed.

4 people found this helpful

Unrealistic!

I was really into the story for awhile and then the ending was so-farfetched that this is the last of Mr. Zunker’s books I am reading. Better us of my time is taking out the garbage!

1 person found this helpful

Interesting!

I really liked Tracker, the first novel in the Sam Callahan series. Shadow Shepherd, the second novel in the series, is not nearly as good. It is worthwhile, but the author took the series in a very different direction. There is no clear picture of the identity or motives of the antagonists.

5 people found this helpful

No thank you

The book was fast paced and exciting. Without giving anything away allI can say is the ending was so unbelievable (literally) and Sam’s reaction so beyond logic that it ruined it for me. I will be going no further in this series.

Superficially written

I enjoyed the Sam Callahan series. They aren't serious mystery thrillers but they are entertaining. Book 2, Shadow Shepherd has its bright spots but is overall pathetic.

Some of the dialogue was quite immature. It was at or below a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys mystery novel. "A-S-A-P" was used so often I quit counting after 12 uses. Others words can be used rather than this rut.

It is difficult to believe the narrative. Three times the greatest assassin in the world misses killing Sam through the first two books in the series. He then is not the greatest assassin in the world.

Disappointing

We listened to this on a trip and were engaged in the story but were disappointed in the ending. If you liked the first book in the series you’ll enjoy everything except the big reveal near the end. The only thing worse the author could have done after building 8.5hrs of great characters and tension and conflict would’ve been to have the hero been dreaming the whole thing.

Not like Equal Justice:

This story does not compare to his later series-An Equal Justice. I did not get past first chapter and audible would not let me exchange it.