Night Shadows (A Jake Sands Mystery) - Softcover

Ron Ely

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0373262183 ISBN 13: 9780373262182

Publisher: Worldwide Library, 1996

Synopsis

Retreating to Santa Barbara to recover from his tragic past, Jake Sands walks away from the murdered body he accidentally finds, until he meets the victim's beautiful widow. Reprint.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

TV Tarzan Ely's first novel pits Jake Sands--a Travis McGee wannabe with the habits (jogging, weight training, sensitivity) of a Santa Barbara Spenser--against whoever killed his Coco Palms neighbor Wendell Leeds; Katherine Burley's missing husband, Greg; and Toni Spence, the woman Greg called just before he disappeared. To find the connection among the deaths, Jake--assisted by crippled restaurateur Jason Meddler and omnivorous, laid-back sheriff's investigator Tex Flanagan--will have to sit through a meeting of the Coco Palms Homeowners' Association, bring up a coded book from an undersea cave, and nose out the links between high-stepping Texas politico David Lee Garrison and departed gang lord Sam Giancana. If this doesn't sound like enough action, a high-mortality finale features jujitsu, zenkutsu-dachi, and some primo shooting. Solid mid-grade entertainment for John D. MacDonald fans. First of a series, though Ely plots as recklessly as if he had to fit the whole series between these covers. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

Former TV actor (he played Tarzan) and Miss America Pageant host, Ely introduces a hard-to-like Santa Barbara investigator in this unpromising series launch. Supposedly tough-as-all-outdoors Jake Sands is an ex-military, ex-government agency, retired "recovery" expert (read bounty hunter) who now lives in a swank beach compound and finds much to fault in the world, from New Age music to slow waiters with dirty fingernails. Sands has two cases to unravel: not long after he discovers the body of a jogger, recently dropped by a bullet, right in his path, a long-legged blonde asks him for help in finding a missing husband. Ely angles in on the latter puzzle, making much of Sands and his client's physical attraction and twanging expected chords of betrayal and disappointment. Smug and petulant, assuming an annoying authority on such topics as classic cars, blends of coffee and the ills of the modern world, Sands is a lifeless, unbelievable character whose actions fail to hold reader's interest.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Worldwide Library
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0373262183
• ISBN 13: 9780373262182
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 298