Warrior in the Shadows

An unusual hitman, half Australian Aborigine and half white, terrorizes Minneapolis with a series of grotesque ritual killings at the start of Warriors in the Shadows, by Marcus Wynne (No Other Option). Det. Bobby Lee Martaine asks his friend Charley Payne, a former CIA operative, to take forensic photographs, and Payne finds himself drawn in against his will by the curious case. Then Bobby Lee and his wife and son are massacred, and Payne sets off for Australia to track down the killer. Dream sequences and bush magic give this graphic thriller an otherworldly aura, while the killer's links to the international drug trade and Wynne's elaborate descriptions of weaponry lend it a real-world patina. The spiritual element may alienate some readers-and strike others as merely silly-but Wynne develops his characters carefully, lavishing particular attention on his unorthodox antihero.