Shadow of Death (Brady Coyne #21) – William G Tapply
Ok so here we are in February and I still have not formalized my 2018 Reading Challenges. The only thing that I do know is my goal is to read 65 books in 2018. Additionally I want at least 25 of them to come from my “to be read bookshelves” I’m actually close to having everything worked out and should be able to post the formal challenges this week.
EKK and the Brady Coyne Series
Now while I haven’t formalized my Challenges yet I am off to a decent start. I finished book number six for the year on Saturday. It was one that has been sitting on my shelves for a long time, Shadow of Death by William G Tapply. Published in 2004 it is book 21 in the Brady Coyne series from Mr Tapply. Death at Charity Point published in 1984 was the first book in the series. Dead Winter book 8 was actually the first book in the series that I read. It was released in paperback 1990 and I read it in the summer. By the end of 1990 I had caught up on the series!!
Sadly, William Tapply passed away in 2009 bringing an end to the series. The final book in the series Outwitting Trolls (Brady Coyne # 28) was released in 2010. Between 1990 and 2001 I read 16 out of the 18 books that had been released in the series. Since then I have not read any Brady Coyne books. Rather I read the three books that Mr Tapply wrote that featured the mysterious Stoney Calhoun.
Reading Shadow of Death reminded me how much I liked the Brady Coyne books. Brady is a Boston lawyer who handles mainly family matters i.e divorces, will, trust etc. for wealthy Bostonian families. Typically one of those family members becomes involved in something that leads to a great mystery-thriller story.
About Shadow of Death
In Shadow of Death Brady is hired by the campaign manager of Ellen Stoddard who is running for the Senate in Massachusetts. His job is to determine why Al Stoddard is acting weird. Could he be having an affair? When the private investigator the Brady hires ends up dead on a lonely stretch of New Hampshire highway. Brady is pulled into a deadly search for Al. When he discovers that two childhood friends of Al’s have also died mysterious deaths, the plot thickens!
Bottom Line
EKK Rating : 4.25 stars out of 5 Goodreads 3.86
As I wrote before reading Shadow of Death reminds me how much I liked the books of William G Tapply. The stories are always exceptionally well plotted and believable. But for me Brady Coyne is the key. He is a great character a lawyer who’d rather be out fly fishing than handling divorces and a character you can really root for!
Publisher’s Weekly writing about Scar Tissue says this about Brady Coyne….
“Outstanding….electrifying…ingenious… one of the most convincingly heroic and likable of the contemporary sleuths”
And from the Florida Times-Union writing about Muscle Memory…
“Mystery Lovers will thoroughly enjoy Brady and the other characters that Tapply creates. They are sharply etched and, together with a deft narrative, make Tapply one of the best in the game”
At the time that Tapply was writing his books his friend Rick Boyer was also writing his successful Doc Adams books. One little thing that I always loved about the Tapply’s books was that somewhere in the book there would be a mention of Doc Adams. In Shadow of Death it’s just a brief mention, but it’s there!
Shadow of Death like most of the Brady Coyne books can be read and enjoyed without reading the previous books. So give one a try! Bet you’ll go back for more! I still have two more of the books on my to be read shelves, including Outwitting Trolls the last book, which I will save for the end!
P.S, Check out a Stoney Calhoun book, too. Those I feel should be read in order, but they’re good , too!!