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Jonathon King is quickly establishing himself as a major figure in the mystery genre. His Max Freeman series is quietly but steadily showing signs of picking up where John D. McDonald's Travis McGee stories left off, chronicling the social and economic mores of south Florida. Freeman, however, is a more enigmatic figure than McGee ever was. The titles of King's novels --- THE BLUE EDGE OF MIDNIGHT, A VISIBLE DARKNESS and now SHADOW MEN --- herald this, promising more darkness than light from the pages within. Freeman becomes more interesting as more is learned about him and his background with each successive novel. Yet each revelation gives rise to more questions.
The second half of SHADOW MEN is better than the first, if only because it seems to take King a bit long to set everything up for what is to come. That isn't to say that the first 130 pages or so of SHADOW MEN is not interesting. There's an 80-year-old mystery here, involving a father and two sons who never made it home after being hired as laborers on a project to build the first road through the Florida Everglades in the 1920s. The reader learns almost immediately what happened to them. The thrust of SHADOW MEN answers the questions of whether --- and, if so, how --- their ultimate fate will be discovered.
The catalyst for the investigation of the deaths is the retention of Billy Maxwell, Freeman's friend and attorney extraordinaire, by Mark Mayes, a college student seeking some closure concerning the fate of the grandfather and uncles he never knew. The only clues that Mayes has in his possession are some letters from his grandfather that implicate Noren, the highway construction company, and an enigmatic foreman named Jefferson.
Maxwell hires Freeman, now a newly minted private investigator, to try to link the ancient evidentiary pieces together. The interplay between Freeman and Maxwell is first rate as King plays off the contrasts between Freeman, the semi-recluse, and Maxwell, the successful attorney, quite nicely. The differences between the men, who would seem to have nothing in common except each other, is actually the glue that binds their friendship. They are both so quirky in their quiet ways that it is doubtful they could get along with anyone who shared their respective personality traits.
King uses the plot of SHADOW MEN as a vehicle for transporting his readers through the swamps of south Florida, off of the beaten track, frequented by the tour airboats and into a region that is loathe, by its very nature, to give up its secrets. Freeman's tenuous romantic relationship with Detective Sherry Richards of the Broward County Sheriff's Office also provides an interesting subplot. The two are so covered with rough edges that someone is going to get cut eventually. The conclusion of SHADOW MEN is inconclusive as to whether someone actually has been. The main story, however, is a fine and subtle morality tale that demonstrates how even casual acts of evil take root and salt the gene pool for generations.
King has really begun to hit his stride here, particularly with his descriptive passages of the dark flora and fauna that inhabit the Everglades region. His prose is evocative of the best of James Lee Burke's work, but without the political baggage that Burke occasionally forces his readers to carry. King also thoughtfully backtracks through the series for first-time readers while continuing to flesh out Freeman's background as a Philadelphia police officer. He has given Freeman plenty of room to grow here. Given the quirky and engaging supporting characters who populate the Freeman novels, and King's well-developed and ever-improving writing, this series should continue to grow in popularity.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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