Shadow of Death (Brady Coyne #21) – William G. Tapply

Here we are in February 2018, and I still hadn’t formalized my Reading Challenges. I knew my goal was to read 65 books that year, with at least 25 pulled from my “to be read” shelves. By the first week of February, I was already off to a decent start — and book number six turned out to be one that had been waiting patiently on my shelves: Shadow of Death by William G. Tapply.

EKK and the Brady Coyne Series

Shadow of Death, published in 2004, is the 21st entry in Tapply’s Brady Coyne series. The series began in 1984 with Death at Charity’s Point. My own journey with Coyne started a little later, with Dead Winter (#8), which I read in the summer of 1990 when the paperback came out. By the end of that year, I had caught up with the series!

Sadly, William Tapply passed away in 2009, bringing the series to a close. The final Brady Coyne book, Outwitting Trolls (#28), was released in 2010. Between 1990 and 2001, I read 16 of the 18 Coyne books available at the time. After that, I shifted to his short but memorable Stoney Calhoun series.

Reading Shadow of Death reminded me just how much I enjoyed these books. Brady Coyne, a Boston lawyer handling divorces, wills, and trusts for wealthy New England families, always seems to get pulled into something bigger. That mix of law, mystery, and human drama was Tapply’s strength.

About Shadow of Death

In Shadow of Death, Brady is hired by the campaign manager of Ellen Stoddard, who is running for the U.S. Senate. The task: find out why her husband, Al Stoddard, is acting strangely. When the private investigator Brady hires is found dead on a lonely New Hampshire road, Brady is drawn into a dangerous search. As he digs deeper, he discovers two of Al’s childhood friends have also died under mysterious circumstances — and the story turns darker.

Bottom Line

Like all of William G. Tapply’s books, Shadow of Death is exceptionally well plotted and believable. But what makes these novels shine is Brady Coyne himself — a lawyer who’d rather be out fly fishing than handling divorces, but who still manages to be a convincingly heroic and likable sleuth.

Publisher’s Weekly, writing about Scar Tissue, praised Brady as “one of the most convincingly heroic and likable of the contemporary sleuths.”

And the Florida Times-Union, reviewing Muscle Memory, noted that “Mystery lovers will thoroughly enjoy Brady and the other characters that Tapply creates… one of the best in the game.”

Another little delight for me has always been the subtle crossover with Rick Boyer’s Doc Adams series. Tapply and Boyer were close friends, and in almost every Coyne novel there’s a sly reference to Doc Adams. Shadow of Death is no exception — it’s brief, but it’s there!

Shadow of Death, like most of the Coyne novels, can be enjoyed on its own. If you haven’t tried Tapply before, this would be a fine place to start. I still have two more Brady Coyne books waiting on my shelf, including Outwitting Trolls, which I’ll save for last.

P.S. Don’t overlook the Stoney Calhoun books. Those three are shorter, but equally strong — and best read in order.

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As always the characters are great, the pace of the book is fast and it keeps you guessing to the end what really happened! While the full development of the characters isn’t know until you read all of the books but you can probably pick this one up and read and enjoy it with having read the others.

One thing I noticed in the book that Maura’s hair is black not the color of Sasha Alexander’s hair in the TV series! But overall I think the TV series does a good job of translating the book to TV. Has anyone watched it?

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