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Title: The Blackmail Ring
Series:
The Shadow #13
Authors: Maxwell Grant
Rating:
3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages:
146
Words: 44K
The Batman vibes were almost overpowering in this story. It’s a decent story about a blackmailer using other blackmailers to do his own dirty work and the Shadow catches wind of it and goes on an international rampage taking out the limbs of the Ring before finally cutting off the head.
He does detecting work.
He is very physically present in this story, with both fists, guns and body checks. He’s not a skinny wimp relying on just scare tactics. The Shadow knows how to fight and he does so.
He drives a souped up super car.
He flies his own little private airplaine.
Batman was most definitely based on the Shadow and the more I read of the Shadow, the more I realize just how much Batman took from him. In many ways, Batman is just an updated version for a new generation and a new medium (comics vs books or radio drama). And yet only 9 years separated the two and they ran concurrently for several decades.
The Shadow gets another recruit and still has to rescue Harry Vincent. I don’t understand Gibson’s continued use of him. He has let other recruits slide into the background and barely mentions them, so why can’t he do that with Harry? Some things just aren’t to be I guess. Kind of like wishing that Coca-Cola would bring back Vanilla-Orange Coke Zero. It ain’t happening. Now I am sad. I’m going over to that corner over there and have a good cry.
And that’s how I’m going to end this review, sitting in a corner crying for something that will never exist again. Ahhh, the pathos is real in this review. Weep, minions, weeeeeeeeep I say.
★★★✬☆
From the Publisher
The Shadow follows a bloody trail of extortion and murder that leads from the back alleys of Paris to the country homes of New England to confront "The Blackmail Ring".
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