( 5 reviews )
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( 4 of 4 found this review helpful ) Posted: Nov 18 2006
Danielle Warren, a professor of Archaeology, is in pursuit of a rare piece of silk for sale on the black market. She agrees to meet with the seller in a secluded place, but before their transaction is completed, all hell breaks loose when the Chinese army moves in to arrest her and an assassin murders the seller before her eyes. But before she is captured, Shane Crowe, an ex-mercenary and current member of Risk Limited, swoops in and rescues her. Shane's mission was to recover the silk for the rightful owners, but given the choice between the silk and Danielle's life, he chose to save her instead. Shane and Danielle flee for their lives with the Chinese army on their heels and successfully make it out of Tibet. What follows is a hair-raising, nail-biting adventure that pits Shane's skills against a ruthless enemy. Shadow and Silk is a thoroughly entertaining story. The pace is a bit slow in the beginning because the author takes time to sketch out each character and set up the storyline. However, this really pays off when the pace picks up because what you have is an intricate storyline with complex and enigmatic characters. You also get a good glimpse of, for example, the twisted relationship between Katya and Kasatonin and how they came to be that way, or the dynamics in Shane's life that leads him to abandon his mission and rescue Danielle. The strength and weakness of Shadow and Silk are the larger-than-life characters. The protagonists are almost too perfect, too good but with dark shadows in their past that they struggle to overcome. The antagonists are just as perfect but on the other end of the spectrum. They are thoroughly evil, pursuing their selfish and deadly ambitions, and whatever good they may have had in their lives has long been stamped out by the traumatic events in their past. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
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( 1 of 2 found this review helpful ) Posted: Oct 12 2006
For new Maxwell readers, this will be a treat. For other Maxwell readers, be aware that this is a reprint of an earlier publication date.
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( 2 of 3 found this review helpful ) Posted: Sep 19 2006
I quite liked Shadow and Silk. In fact, it reminded me a bit of my favourite Lowell, Tell Me No Lies. It had interesting characters, an intriguing suspense element and a nice (if a bit underdeveloped) romance. In S&S Lowell introduces Risk Limited, a seeming precursor to that other organization, Rarities Unlimited, which she wrote about in Moving Target, Running Scared and Die in Plain Sight. While Rarities had Dana and Niall, Risk Limited has a similarly intriguing and well-rounded couple at its helm: former high-ranking diplomat Cassandra Redpath and her lover, Gillie, a British former military man. But while these two are a strong presence in the book, they are not the hero and heroine. That place belongs to two characters that were just as intriguing, the textiles scholar Danielle Warren and Shane Crowe, a man whose history includes a stint with the CIA, a period as a hermit, in which he considered becoming a Buddhist monk, and work for a UN charity digging up and disarming live land mines. It's interesting: S&S's from 1997, so it's not very old, but it's a whole other world. I don't think any author today would have a hero having spent years working with the muhajedeen in Afghanistan, against the Soviets. How things change! Anyway, Dani and Shane meet in Tibet, when she's approached by a Chinese dealer trying to sell her a priceless old textile. Shane, whose mission for Risk Limited is to recover this same fabric, the Buddah's robe, stolen from the monastery of the Azure sect, saves Dani's life when it becomes clear that it was all a setup. Forced to make a split-second decision between saving Dani and recovering the fabric, Shane chooses the former, and then helps her get out of the country. Back in Washington DC, Dani's approached by Risk Limited for help in recovering the fabric. Seems it was stolen by the Harmony, a shadowy secret organization grouping some of the most dangerous criminal associations in the world, and they mean to use it as a gift to draw in a reluctant Japanese yakuza boss and make themselves even more powerful. Shane would prefer to keep Dani out of danger, but his bosses overrule him and insist on allowing Dani to choose whether she wants to risk it or not. Dani, feeling she owes both Shane and his organization for her rescue (and feeling she owes it to the world to keep a treasure such as the fabric from disappearing), decides she wants to, so she and Shane thus begin a mission that will take them to Aruba, Seattle and the islands off Vancouver. On the whole, I really enjoyed the story, even though every element I enjoyed had its flaws. For instance, I really, really liked Shane and Dani and their relationship. Each were interesting in their own right, and Lowell created a wonderfully steamy sexual tension between them. However, I would have liked this even better if I'd had more of it. They just didn't have enough time together, and though I liked the idea of Shane's chastity vow (seeing him wish it was over already was fun), it did mean that the payoff for all that lovely sexual tension took a bit too long. Same thing with the suspense subplot. I liked it, but... I enjoyed all the stuff about the ancient textiles, but I just don't think Lowell really succeeded in impressing in me why it was so necessary to recover the robe, why it would be so disastrous if they failed to do so. And this created a distinct lack of urgency. It seemed to me it was more important to destroy the Harmony, but they seemed to regard this as more of a secondary aim. Katya Pilenkova and Ilya Kostanin were more interesting villains that I'm used to from Lowell. I did think we spent a bit too much time with the Harmony (especially considering I was wishing for more time with Shane and Dani), but unlike in her newer books (like Running Scared, for instance, where it was the main thing I disliked), these villains are at least interesting people. The writing style was one I mostly liked, though there were certain things there (too) that I wasn't too crazy about. I do like how Lowell writes banter between her protagonists, but she makes the mistake of having them constantly congratulate each other on how witty, quick and brilliant their comments are, rather than let them stand alone and allow us readers to judge whether they are, in fact, so witty and brilliant. On the whole, though, the positives much exceeded the negatives, and I really enjoyed myself reading this.
