The Shadow has a rich mythos that never gets explored in radio, TV, or movies. As one delves further into the series and shucks off the 'Lamont Cranston' baloney and discovers the 'Kent Allard' background a whole new world opens up.

This book does nothing to pull you into that world and it's a wonder the character ever caught on with this for an intro. The character (literally) remains in the shadows and only pops up in deus ex machina situations that the rather incompetent lead character Harry Vincent stumbles into.

If you want to get a good feel for how great the Shadow really is, start with THE BLACK MASTER, probably the best book in the entire 20-30 year run.

Still, even the best book has its drawbacks, the primary one being that Walter Gibson is simply not a good writer. He was quick, and prolific, but he wasn't good. His stories are full of melodramatic foreshadowings and his repeated use of one-sentence paragraphs gets annoying in short order.

To summarize: a terrific mystery-man character... a lousy introductory tale... and a not-so-great author. ( )