The Shadow Catchers

Patrick Anderson

… Lakeman relates his nightmare with skill, confidence and a sharp eye for detail -- he believes in his dark tale enough to make us buy it, too … Lakeman has set out in his first novel to present a vision of Hell, of pure evil, and to a considerable degree he has succeeded. State-of-the-art violence may not be your idea of fun, but if it is, The Shadow Catchers is an engrossing read.
— The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Lakeman's enjoyable but flawed debut introduces FBI Special Agent Michael Yeager, who hits the road to escape his conscience after a child kidnapping case he was working on in Philadelphia goes horribly wrong. He winds up in Dyer County, Nev., where he brawls with a man apparently snatching a handicapped boy while ranting about his missing daughter. When the man turns up dead and disfigured, Yeager is the first suspect, but local sheriff Rafe Archer clears Yeager and recruits his unofficial help investigating the murder and the missing girl, crimes that clearly point to a skilled serial killer. Lakeman delivers a winning protagonist, good pacing and natural dialogue. The plot, however, becomes ever more contrived as it develops, twisting into unlikely and gory shapes that also require psychologically unlikely contortions of the characters. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Suspended by the FBI after a fatal child-kidnapping case, agent Mike Yeager leaves Philadelphia and lands in San Cristobel, NV. When he interferes in what he sees as a possible child endangerment, Yeager is arrested for disturbing the peace. But then the man involved in the scuffle is murdered, and the sheriff asks Yeager for help in finding his own missing granddaughter. Soon, Yeager is forced to confront his personal demons and the Shadow Catcher, a serial killer targeting children. First-time novelist Lakeman captures Nevada's desert environment and the small-town attitudes of longtime residents who think that they know their neighbors. The author lives in Alabama. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Who's killing all the kids? Mike Yeager, on leave from the FBI since a child abduction he worked on went horribly wrong, winds up in Dyer County, Nev., just in time to rescue Robbie, a crippled boy who's being manhandled by Dale. Robbie gets away; Dale stays and fights Mike, but loses. He loses even bigger the next day, when he turns up decapitated and Mike finds himself Sheriff Archer's main suspect. The sheriff has a special interest in the case since Dale was married to his whoring daughter Mary Frances, whose five-year-old Cassie is missing. Mary's twin sister, Martha, and her preacher husband, Gavin, are also wringing their hands, maybe because they're also worried about their old acquaintance Pete Frizelle, a good-for-nothing pimp. While Mike and psychiatrist Connor Blackwell try to make sense of who's doing what to whom, everyone close to the sheriff is being exsanguinated; lots of little kids are dying; and most of the townsfolk are keeping secrets-especially about a fire at a camp on the lake and a revenge plotted for a decade by someone long thought to be dead. A grim, proficient first novel that begins as a typical PI vehicle, then segues to serial-killer horror mode. If it ends in a swirl of melodrama, perhaps these are kinks Lakeman can work out in future endeavors.