Fatal Shadows

The Adrien English Mysteries

By: Josh Lanyon

Narrated by: Chris Patton

Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

Someone's out to get Los Angeles bookseller Adrien English. His best friend has been viciously murdered, now he's getting weird phone calls and sinister gifts from a mysterious "admirer." The cops think he's trying to divert suspicion from himself - with the exception of sexy and homophobic homicide detective Jake Riordan. Is Riordan really such a great detective - or does he have a few secrets of his own? Is his offer to help Adrien on the level or is he out to nail his favorite suspect - to the wall?

©Copyright 2012 Josh Lanyon (P)2012 Josh Lanyon

"Anything to get me in handcuffs?" LOL

Any additional comments?

I read this story a few months back and recently listened to the audio of books 3-5 in this series.

So, of course I needed to listened to this was one and was once again completely enraptured in Chris Patton's voice. He is such a fantastic performer.

The sexy roughness as Jake (that sexiness went beyond the call of duty in book 5, my favorite so far), and of course the sweet almost innocent sounding Adrien English is all performed so beautifully.

Even the other characters are performed wonderfully.

His voice just adds magic to an already amazing story!

LOL. I think I wrote this in another review, Adrien literally just walks into danger...no matter how hard he tries not to.

This truly is a great mm romance mystery series. Just need to finish with book 2 now.

one of the best series I've read/heard

still at the top after hundreds of other reads, the Adrien English series has it all, emotional rollercoaster, mystery, drama, action, love and lust. This wild ride is worth every peak and drop Lanyon drags you through! I love the dynamic of this couple.

I LOVE this series!!!

What did you love best about Fatal Shadows?

the plot, the characters, Adrien! His mother! Claude! Chris Patton!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Fatal Shadows?

Anytime claude spoke, Chris pulled off the pseudo accent so well!

Which scene was your favorite?

I really liked the end.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The scene with sex scene toward the end. so creepy.

Good narration of a great book!

Would you listen to Fatal Shadows again? Why?

Yes. I have listened to it more than one. It is a good mystery and a great start to the series.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Adrien is a great narrator but there is something about Jake that makes you fall in love with him.

What does Chris Patton bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

My favourite thing about Chris Patton's narration is the way he voices Jake. It is so spot on...and really adds to the character. I read the book before I listened to it and it was fun hearing how Patton interpreted the lines.

Who was the most memorable character of Fatal Shadows and why?

Hmmm. Well Claude was the most eccentric but Adrien is such a great narrator that it is his voice that stays with you

Any additional comments?

This whole series is very enjoyable and the narration is well done. I would highly recommend it.

Decent Story.

it was a good story. Liked the gay theme. But got a littled tired of the over homophobia of all the straight characters. I kniw this took place in 2000. but still. i dont believe it was that bad at that time. especially in LA.

Great story. Great narration.

I've lost track of how many times I have listened to and read this book. There is something strangely soothing about this murder mystery. The rythym and pace of the words and the story are very comfortable. You get slowly drawn into a mystery that is actually a bit horrific. At every turn you are convinced that a clue points to the murderer only to have that theory unraveled. This is my favorite kind of mystery.

The characters are easy to empathize with. Even the antagonists are hard to entirely hate. The setting is lovely. The story is fascinating. The end is ... well... an excellent resolution to a twisted mystery.

I have enjoyed every word of this series, both written and spoken. I look forward to reading it over again.

Good for re-reads, but shows it’s age

This book was originally published in 2000, so there’s quite a bit of content in the story that’s a bit sketch and don’t hold up as well today, I think. Would I recommend this book in 2021? Probably not. Or at least without letting folks know all the warnings involved.

Content notes include homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, rape/non-consensual sex in the last chapter of this book, stalker/threats, racism, death of gay men, mentions of a presumed suicide, ableism, and a cat being murdered. The noncon is not between the two love interests in this series, but it does happen, and it is not addressed by the characters (as far as I can tell) at any point in the remaining pages of this book or the beginning chapters of the next. The MC was not into it and there was unprotected sex involved.

So, I flew through this book. I love mysteries, but haven't really read mysteries in a while. And I miss the thrill of the chase. What better than to have a mystery subplot in a romance book? Well, this book is a bit older than the usual contemporaries, so there's a few things that date it that I definitely don't think would be acceptable if it were published today (it honestly shouldn’t have been acceptable back when it was published either).

However, there are fun retro things where video rentals are still a thing and the fact that the character rely more on landlines because I guess cellphones don’t exist in this book. There are some instances too where there's a lot of British terms in the text even though the book is set in LA. It kind of takes me out of the story, but could possibly be explained away with Adrien having an English mother.

We meet Adrien, a bookstore owner and soon-to-be mystery book author. He's wakes up to two policemen questioning him about the death of a long-time friend and employee of his, Robert. Robert was found stabbed to death in an alleyway and he had been last seen arguing with Adrien at a bar the night before. Very suddenly, Adrien is a potential suspect and he hasn't even had his coffee yet.

This was a fairly quick-paced whodunnit story, with Adrien trying to stay off the police's potential suspects list by doing very suspicious things that totally doesn't help his case one bit. The officers, Chen and Riordan are interesting case partners. They work well together, and Riordan is particularly intriguing to read about knowing that he'll be the love interest in the overall series, if not this book. He's into the BDSM scene, but extremely closeted and straight to his family and at his workplace. His internalized homophobia is definitely something that's going to have to get worked out later in the series, but it's not...pleasant to read about.

Adrien is a bundle of nerves and has a heart condition, and naturally doesn't take well to surprises. He's a pretty funny narrator. We only see the story from his POV, but I like Adrien well enough. The mystery aspect is full of twists and turns, even if the suspect was a little bit easy to guess at early on, I think? I do like that Adrien has a group of mystery authors sort of club at his bookstore and reading about how mystery authors would react to being suspects in an actual on-going investigation was fun.

A note on the audiobook is that Chris Patton is quite a good narrator and I like his voices for the characters. I think the only weird thing regarding the audiobook is that there’s really random long pauses. The pauses aren’t between scene changes but just between sentences. Then where there SHOULD be pauses for scene changes, there’s no pause at all so that was a bit jarring. And at one point, there was a very obvious audio insert (a correction maybe?) that sounded really strange and didn’t fit into the audio at all. My problems with the audiobook aren’t enough to necessarily put me off since the narration itself is quite good.

There's not much in the way of romance in this book. It's definitely more mystery than romance, since the endgame of Adrien and Riordan seems more for the series long slow-burn than anything else. Which is fine with me. I feel like the ending to this book ends quite abruptly after everything is solved, but luckily, the next book is already out, so I can't wait to read A Dangerous Thing!

Fun Mystery, Mediocre Romance

As a first book in a series, this one does a solid job. We get to know our central characters, and Lanyon's great dialogue brings out the best, especially in Adrien. That said, the romance between Adrien and Jake is a non event in this book. There is tension and at least lust, but Adrien and Jake don't have romance in this book. I'm willing to see how this series continues, especially if Patton continues his narration.

A great start for a great series

Adrien English wants to write mysteries not live them out, but fate has decided that he needs to be in the middle. Friends are murdered, mayhem happens and the cops think it's Adrien himself. Detective Riordan is as straight as they come........or is he? So who can Adrien trust in finding out who really killed his friends, and without getting killed himself?

Loved it!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

The narrator is phenomenal! I was occasionally frustrated with the main characters but in a fun way! The tension between them was great. The mystery was good and had some surprises!

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

Yes...There were frequent twists in the plot.

What does Chris Patton bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Yes! I love the various voices and his inflection. He does an amazing job!

If you could take any character from Fatal Shadows out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Adrien, of course...I would want to knock some sense into him about Jake! LOL

Any additional comments?

Well worth the time! I've already read book two and on to book three.