The Shadow Men

Hidden Cities #4

by Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon

From Beacon Hill to Southie, historic Boston is a town of vibrant neighborhoods knit into a seamless whole. But as Jim Banks and Trix Newcomb learn in a terrifying instant, it is also a city divided—split into three separate versions of itself by a mad magician once tasked with its protection.
 
Jim is happily married to Jenny, with whom he has a young daughter, Holly. Trix is Jenny’s best friend, practically a member of the family—although she has secretly been in love with Jenny for years. Then Jenny and Holly inexplicably disappear—and leave behind a Boston in which they never existed. Only Jim and Trix remember them. Only Jim and Trix can bring them back.

With the help of Boston’s Oracle, an elderly woman with magical powers, Jim and Trix travel between the fractured cities, for that is where Jenny and Holly have gone. But more is at stake than one family’s happiness. If Jim and Trix should fail, the spell holding the separate Bostons apart will fail too, and the cities will reintegrate in a cataclysmic implosion. Someone, it seems, wants just that. Someone with deadly shadow men at their disposal.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Urban Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery

325 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of such novels as Road of Bones, Ararat, Snowblind, Of Saints and Shadows, and Red Hands. With Mike Mignola, he is the co-creator of the Outerverse comic book universe, including such series as Baltimore, Joe Golem: Occult Detective, and Lady Baltimore. As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies Seize the Night, Dark Cities, and The New Dead, among others, and he has also written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot. Golden co-hosts the podcast Defenders Dialogue with horror author Brian Keene. In 2015 he founded the popular Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His work has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award, the Eisner Award, and multiple Shirley Jackson Awards. For the Bram Stoker Awards, Golden has been nominated ten times in eight different categories. His original novels have been published in more than fifteen languages in countries around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com

Reviews

[Stefan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Shadow Men is the fourth book in Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon’s THE HIDDEN CITIES series. If (like me) you’re not familiar with the previous books, it may be good to know that all four books can be read as standalone novels that share a common premise but (as far as I know) no major characters or plot elements. In the series’ fantasy universe, cities have something like a soul or consciousness, which is incarnated in a human “Oracle” who helps the inhabitants and the city itself. The previous three novels (Mind the Gap, The Map of Moments and The Chamber of Ten) were set in London, New Orleans and Venice respectively, and The Shadow Men takes place in Boston.

When Jim wakes up from a nap, he discovers that his wife Jenny and daughter Holly have disappeared. There’s no trace whatsoever left of their existence: their numbers are gone from his mobile phone, all their pictures and possessions have vanished without a trace, and no one even remembers them except their friend Trix. Jim and Trix manage to contact the Oracle of Boston and learn that, because of the failed sorcery of a previous Oracle in the 19th century, Boston now exists simultaneously in three separate dimensions, and Jenny and Holly are now in one of the other versions of the city. Both Jim and Trix have had visions of the other Bostons in the past, Jim in his paintings and Trix in her dreams, but neither of them had any idea that those other versions really existed. As they set out to find Jenny and Holly, they discover that there’s much more at stake than just their missing family and friends: the future of Boston depends on their success...

On the plus side, The Shadow Men is smoothly written and fast-paced. It starts off with a massive hook (the mysterious disappearance of Jim’s family) and then relentlessly pulls the reader along as Jim and Trix find out more about the Oracle of Boston and the three different versions of the city. The story rarely if ever slows down until it reaches the end, so if all you’re looking for is an action-packed urban fantasy novel, The Shadow Men will certainly deliver for you. If you’re looking for more, though, you may end up disappointed.

One problem is that, aside from Jim and Trix, the characters in The Shadow Men rarely feel like more than templates, and even the two main characters are mostly defined by what’s needed to move the story along. It’s hard to get sucked into a story about a missing family if, as the reader, you don’t really care for the missing people or the searchers. The one aspect that makes Trix more interesting (a secret crush on the missing Jenny) gets ruined later on in the story. Revealing how would be a spoiler, but you may figure out where things are going early on anyway because it’s not exactly unpredictable.

The novel also suffers from an unfortunate lack of detail in terms of world-building and history. I would have loved to learn more about the history of the three Bostons, the failed sorcery that caused the schism, and the Oracle who was responsible for it. Instead, all of this is mostly just mentioned in passing. There’s an infodump with some (admittedly interesting) historical information about why and how the three Bostons evolved along separate paths, but the main difference, when you see the cities in the book, appears to be architecture. Maybe the authors didn’t want to slow the novel down too much by including all this information, but fleshing out these details would have reinforced the feeling that parts of it take place in a wholly different dimension, rather than in an almost identical city that just happens to have a skyscraper where there’s supposed to be a cathedral.

I also had a problem with the entire concept of the doppelgangers, on which a good chunk of the plot relies. These are people who appear in multiple versions of Boston, so e.g. the missing Jenny has a counterpart in the other Bostons. It’s hard to believe that some of those doppelgangers are mostly identical to their originals, aside from maybe not being married to the same person, being in slightly better shape and so on. If an entire city has had a completely different history for over a century, encompassing multiple generations, you’d think there would be much more significant changes. And that’s not even mentioning the whole “wish fulfillment” resolution of Trix’ storyline, which for me was the final drop in terms of being able to take this novel entirely seriously.

In the end, The Shadow Men can be an entertaining read if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief sufficiently and if you can accept the relative thinness of both plot and characters, but with a little more depth and attention to detail this could have been a much better novel. I’ve enjoyed the works of both Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon in the past, but unfortunately this collaboration wasn’t a successful one for me.

(This review was also published on www.fantasyliterature.com.)

[Amy Lignor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certain areas of this highly fast-paced and slightly confusing plotline reminds one of “The Matrix,” a city that exists, yet doesn’t, an oracle who knows all, and a team of deadly ‘shadow men’ who are in this for themselves. In this tale, Boston is the city that is the location of a wealth of ‘oddities’ that this team of writers has proven they can deliver.

Jim Banks, his wife Jenny and their daughter Holly make their home in Boston. One morning, Jim wakes up to find Jenny and Holly missing. Except they’re not really missing, per se—there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that either of them ever existed. No personal items or photographs can be found and their numbers have disappeared from Jim’s cell phone. Jim begins to go crazy trying to find his wife and daughter and it’s as if he made them up.

Jim comes upon a woman by the name of Trix Newcomb, who is Jenny’s best friend, and she's the only other person who remembers Jenny and Holly. Trix tells Jim a tale of how her life has changed somehow and now she can no longer find anyone who ever knew her. This gives Jim hope that they will be able to solve this odd situation.

They contact the Oracle of Boston, who is an elderly woman with magical powers. She informs them that in a previous century, her predecessor who was then in charge of Boston, placed the city in three different time dimensions and Jim’s family is now in one of the other dimensions. As Trix and Jim try to figure out how to reach the others, Jim sees that the paintings he did of Boston aren’t pictures of the present city, and Trix is having dreams of a completely different Boston than the one they’re in.

This book is full of action scenarios and some all-out adventures that science fiction enthusiasts should love, whereas other readers who are more into the mystery, thriller and suspense categories will want to bypass this particular series.

(Amy For Suspense Magazine)

[DeAnne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of the story revolves around the concept that Boston has an Oracle that shares the soul of the city. But in 1890, the Boston Oracle wanted to protect the Irish-ness of the city, and while trying to perform a ritual to ensure that all future Oracles would be Irish, he explodes the city into three distinct time lines.

Our protagonist has lost his wife and daughter in one of these Bostons, and with the help of Prime Oracle, and his best lesbian friend, he sets off to find them.

Christopher Golden has always been a strong pacer, but in his previous books, I've always enjoyed how well his characters are realized. In this book; not so much. The characters are flat and one dimensional, the end of the book was fairly predictable, and I never really fell in love with, or even cared about the characters, and was fairly indifferent to their survival. The characters I *was* interested in were only barely explored.

It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours. It's not high literature, it's not as good as other Christopher Golden books I've read, but I still enjoyed it. I didn't realize that this book was part of a series of books, and have not yet read any of the others. This one stood on its own, and didn't seem to have any connection to an overall story arc.

[Jessica Bronder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jim Banks lives in Boston with his wife Jenny and daughter Holly. But one day when he wakes from a nap Jenny and Holly are gone. I don’t mean Jenny left him gone. I mean every trace of them is gone, like they never existed. Then Jim finds Trix Newcomb, she is Jenny’s best friend but has discovered that she can’t find anyone that remembers her.

Together Jim and Trix travel to the Oracle of Boston to figure out what is going on. They learn a prior Oracle made a mess of thing and created three versions of Boston that have grown differently. This is where Jenny and Holly are at. It is up to Jim and Trix to save them and put Boston back together. If the city doesn’t get combined it will explode shortly.

This story has a pretty good concept as Jim and Trix try to find jenny and Holly while uniting the three versions of Boston. There is a lot of history and an interesting reason for why the city was split up. I like the different versions of Boston not being too far off and the doppelgangers being interesting.

Now, having said that, I did feel that the book fell a little flat. I wasn’t all that invested into Jim, Jenny, and Holly. There was a race against time yet I wasn’t fully invested in the story so I didn’t really care. Although the book has potential, I’m sorry to say that for me I was just happy to be done with it in the end.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. I voluntarily chose to read and post an honest review.

[Mayu · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Shadow Men starts when we are introduced into the world of Jim, his strange dreams and his beautiful family but soon his world goes upside down and he finds himself in a situation where everything he believed has become a lie…..
First of all, I loved the setting of the book. The concept of the parallel worlds is very fascinating and how each world provides a different possibility, a different journey for the people in it is very interesting.

And secondly, The Shadow Men was an absolute page turner filled with suspense and twists and turns. If you are a fan of Urban Fantasy thriller then you definitely need to have The Shadow Men in your collection.

[Megan Jaskowiak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely my least favorite the Hidden Cities series.

[Alison C · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Shadow Men, by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, is the fourth in their collaborative series effort called The Hidden Cities. In this story, Boston is the setting. Jim Banks is a successful artist, living in a lovely Boston home with his wife Jenny and 7-year-old daughter Holly, until one afternoon, when he wakes up from a nap after seeing his wife and daughter and friend/art representative Jonathan out for a day of shopping, to find that everything has changed. Jenny and Holly haven't returned, which is unlike them, and when he calls Jonathan to find out where they are, Jonathan denies any knowledge of their existence. It takes little time for Jim to find out that he has somehow slipped into an alternate Boston, one where he and Jenny never met, Holly was never born and Jonathan is dying of the cancer that was caught in his Boston because Jenny insisted he see a doctor. Soon he finds Jenny's best friend Trix in the same weird place, and together they learn what has happened: there are three separate Bostons, in two of which both Jim and Trix died, so that they are Uniques, able to pass between worlds and seek help from the city's Oracle in each world - elderly Veronica in their world, a barkeep in Irish Boston and Sally, an 11-year old Black girl in Brahmin Boston. But there are plots afoot created by Veronica, and in the In-Between place, where non-Uniques might drift, ordinary people become monsters to be used in a war against other Oracles - and Jenny and Holly are somewhere in these places....I've enjoyed the Hidden Cities novels up until now - the first set in London, then New Orleans and most recently in Venice, but this one, well, stopped me. When you find yourself reluctant to pick up the book/e-reader because the story is just so grim, it's really hard to continue on. But because I liked the earlier books, I forced myself through this one, and to be fair the last two or three chapters redeemed the darkness. But honestly, this is a really hard story to read - I mean, imagine for yourself in your own life that in the blink of an eye, the people you hold nearest and dearest, the love of your life and your child, are snatched away into nothingness - not only aren't they there with you, but they never existed at all. And then to go into strangely familiar but utterly alien replicas of your home in order to find them and bring them back? No. It's all a step too far into horror, for me, anyway. I'd still recommend Mind the Gap, the first Hidden Cities book, and the two that followed, but although you don't need to read the others to understand this one - they're all stand-alone, just with the same hidden-worlds-within-cities theme - I'd stay away from this one. The writing is as good as ever, but the feel is just too bleak, at least until the very end.

[Rae · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot itself was interesting enough for the most part. The idea of multiple versions of the city was interesting, but I wish they had been explored a bit more. The story goes by so fast that there's little room for the setting or the characters to really develop or for a sense of setting to really be established. The action never stops though, and this makes the book a quick read. Plot-wise, the last few chapters were the weakest in the sense that they were far too predictable.

Character wise is where the story suffers. The characters were fairly flat and static throughout the book. The reader is told about each character in an info dump in the beginning, but some of the things we're told are never shown and others don't have any effect on the story. The main character's daughter has about as much character development as a captured princess. There was a lot of potential for interesting character development with the two leads, or at least interesting interactions but instead they're constantly rushing from place to place with barely any conversation and little internal monologue.

If you want an interesting plot and lots of action and aren't bothered by stock characters, you'll probably at least be amused this book. It, if nothing else, is a decent way to pass the time. I recommend it for waiting rooms and airplanes.

[Janice Bonczek · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fourth book in the "Hidden Cities" series, this one taking place in Boston. A very cool feature I noticed was that each chapter title is also the name of a song by the band Flogging Molly (an Irish-American rock band).

The story centers around Jim Banks, his wife Jenny, their daughter Holly, and their best friend Trix. Jim & Trix "wake up" one day to find themselves changed, and no evidence that Jenny or Holly ever existed. However, they find each other, and the memories they share convince them that they're not crazy. But how will they find their loved ones?

Trix knows about the "Oracle of Boston", who once helped her grandmother find her grandfather when he went missing due to his Alzheimer's Disease. She convinces Jim to go through the ritual needed to contact her, and they wait.

The adventure that follows for them is full of action, parallel universes, interesting historical fiction, and a large dose of the supernatural. Same as the other books in this series, this was a crazy page-turner for me, once I began reading it, I could not put it down until I had finished. Check it out!

[Sigrid Freyjasdottir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in a Boston that has been divided into three cities, The Shadow Men is a well written fantasy about a race against time to save a mother and daughter before a vicious killer can destroy them and the cities of Boston. This is one book in a series, but can be read as a stand-alone. The premise is interesting and the plot moves forward quickly. It was great that LGBT characters are included as major characters. I would recommend this book to fans of fantasy and horror.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the fourth book in the Hidden Cities series; this time the setting is Boston. I didn't like it quite as well as the first couple of books, those dealing with London and New Orleans, but it's a good, fast-paced story with interesting plot twists and interesting characters, especially one named Trix. It gets a bit confused a couple of times, but it all straightens out in the end.

[Jay Eckert · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick read. At times, a bit hard to follow. Extremely fast paced. Fun characters. Interesting plot.

[Pamela Lloyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot, setting, and basic storytelling are well done and the story took some unexpected turns, which is always refreshing, but the characters felt a bit flat to me.