When Shadows Fall

DS Max Craigie, Book 6

De: Neil Lancaster

Narrado por: Angus King

'Non-stop action, breakneck pace, deliciously suspenseful… When Shadows Fall was my first DS Max Craigie book and won’t be my last – I loved it.' Andrea Mara

'A good old police procedural… I was pleasantly terrified' The Guardian

'Bone-chilling and full of so many twists' The Sun

A TRAGIC DEATH

When the body of Leanne Wilson is found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, it is classified as a tragic accident. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise.

A RISING BODY COUNT

Then DS Max Craigie discovers that five other women in the last year have died by falling off mountains, and something feels very wrong. They were all experienced climbers and alone when they died. This can only mean one thing: there’s a killer on the loose.

A KILLER IN THE SHADOWS

The more Max investigates, the more he believes that they are dealing with something much bigger than a lone serial killer. With five victims and conflicting clues, how do you catch someone committing the perfect crime?

©2025 Neil Lancaster (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers

Katie's character is ridiculously immature!

I really like this series but Katie is too needy and lacks any substance for these story lines. I've always thought that Max would never be with a woman who is so insecure. LE or military could never handle this type of personality, IMO. Because of her constant berating of Max, I found this book more difficult to complete. Pregnant or not, her whinny childish attitude was too over the top and almost ruined the drama of the story.

Still good, but characters getting stale.

I’ve listened to every book in this series and pre-ordered this one, I’ve enjoyed them all, but there were times in this one when I wanted to fast forward through some of the dialogue particularly that relayed by “Ross” the boss. The character is intended, I’m sure, to be a grumpy and foul mouthed, but ultimately lovable and good hearted copper. The problem is that he’s become a bit ‘one note’ and a bore to listen to. It seems inconceivable that any organisation in this day and age would put up with him, and certainly I as a listener am finding it hard to.

Ross isn’t the only one however, character stagnation is also an issue with Katie and Max both constantly running the same dialogue re: work / life balance and being unhappy and or guilty with how they feel about it respectively. I get that this is a genuine concern for people in every day life, but it’s wearing to have it repeatedly re run by the same characters every few chapters.

I did enjoy the storyline, which was inventive and clever and although it wasn’t hard to figure out the perpetrators there were a few surprises.

Angus King’s narration is always great, though I struggled to tell his Barney from his Clive in this one, but maybe that was deliberate?!