Allen Caraway

You don’t get the title until the ending but the getting TO the title – well, it’s one heck of a ride!
Sam Munro is a British journalist for a high tech car magazine. He travels to Montana to get a look at
one cherry 1970 Mustang Mach 1 belonging to Doug Bamber. Doug and Sam hit it off and Sam is invited
to Doug’s BBQ the next evening.
He checks into the Inn he’s staying at and immediately things start happening Mirrors with HELP ME
written on them being one. At Doug’s Sam meets many locals including a couple named Alison and
Dave. It doesn’t hit him until much later, because he’d not met them before;but they are the parents of
the girl he was in love with in high school. He loved and lost her because he wasn’t strong
enough/brave enough to stand up to the boy who hassled them. When he asks Doug how Jane is, he
is devastated to hear she has been missing for over 6 years and presumed dead. Suddenly the Mustang
article is on the backburner and miscues, interviews and some odd-acting locals make Sam stay longer
to seek out clues. He finds much more than he bargained for!
This is an edge-of-your-seat book. I loved it but was sad to see it end. Sam is a great character and
Ashley, his girlfriend is a personality all her own. Great for the mystery lover but you might want to
leave a light on.… (més)

Allen Caraway's "Drowning in Shadow" was quite good. I think the characters were realistic, the dialogue tight, and the pacing even. The plot did require you to accept some pretty amazing coincidences, but then, many stories are based on just the right person being at just the right place at just the right time.

Sam Munro is a car magazine writer based in London. He's flown out to Montana to do a story, but encounters supernatural occurrences that throw him for a loop. Little does he know that he's in the hometown of his high school sweetheart, Jane Liberton. He also doesn't know that she's been missing for years and presumed murdered. When he finally accepts that these supernatural happenings are Jane's spirit asking for help, he begins searching for the truth of what happened to her with the help of several locals. Along the way, he begins falling for a local waitress named Ashley.

While I don't typically read "ghost stories," I was pretty moved by the strange things that happened to Sam. Ironically, once they happen, the occurrences pretty much stopped. So the switch from a ghost story to a whodunit without supernatural elements was a bit surprising.

One thing that pleased me was the fact that Sam didn't go from an average magazine writer to super sleuth detective in the blink of an eye. So often writers create supposedly average characters who get themselves involved in a strange situation only to become adept at escaping hitmen or assassins, digging out the truth from deep, dark crevices, etc. So good on Caraway for writing a very average, believable character!

Full disclosure: After reading some of my other reviews at Amazon, Allen Caraway asked me to read and review "Drowning in Shadow." I do not know Allen.… (més)