E-Book Review: Shadow of a Distant Morning

E-Books!!! There seem to be a lot of these lately. As a matter of fact, this book was specifically published by an independent publisher who specializes in digital publishing.

Let me tell you a little about the book. The title of the book is Shadow of a Distant Morning. It is the first book by William Topek. It is set in the 30's when gangs / mobs were very common. One of the fictional private investigators of the time was Devlin Caine and he was in Kansas City.

Reading this story was kind of like watching the old Dragnet series. The story was told from the investigators point of view and in my mind the voice telling the story almost sounded like the voice from the old Dragnet series. Oh ... by the way (and just to be clear). I READ this book - not listened to it. The voice was something I imagined in my head. You know how sometimes we get influenced by things in our lives. My perception can be different from yours.

What was our PI's background before he became an independent PI? Well.., during the war he was was involved with messages and coding. After the war he started working for Pinkerton's - an agency well known in the investigative world. He decided he wanted to get out on his own so he started his own small time agency.

Most of his work has been typical small time investigative stuff - tailing spouses suspected of cheating, looking for missing people, and stuff like that. But his life is about to change with his next job. He is asked by a rich business man to get information on a prospective business partner. At first it seems to be a simple job but things do not add up. Why is it the successful business man does not use his own private investigator to do the investigation? And why does the other private investigator end up dead?

There are red flags but the PI Devlin who sometimes likes to be called "DEVIL" gets sucked into continuing to work for the rich business man. You see - there is a young beautiful girl involved as well - the rich man's daughter. Devlin tries to keep things professional but can't help wanting to protect her from things that are happening. Things get pretty mixed up when the guy he was investigating also ends up dead and he is hired to protect the rich man's daughter.

Devlin is a pretty interesting person but he by no means is the only one. There are several different story lines blended together and it is one book you should not miss.

Incidentally ... one of the bonuses for me was a mention about Texans. Devlin is telling about the best barbecue Kansas City is known for. He goes as far to say it is probably the best in the world - but he adds - you wouldn't say that if a Texan was around. That tickled me a bit because Texans do have a huge pride. I guess I should know - I'm a Texan.

To learn more about:
The author Willian Topek click here
The publisher ireadiwrite Publishing click here