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Derek Stillwater #4
The Valley of Shadows
A raid on a Pakistan Al-Qaeda cell recovers two laptops. When the computers' booby-traps are defused and the computers decrypted and translated, they indicate that Al-Qaeda has planned a series of simultaneous attacks in five U.S. cities involving potential dirty bombs, biological weapons and maybe even a nuclear weapon-on Election Day. Derek Stillwater, troubleshooter for the Department of Homeland Security, is assigned to a multi-jurisdictional Special Terrorism Activity Response Team (START) to locate the weapon and terrorists in Los Angeles and prevent the attack. They have two days. But as they close in on their targets, Derek begins to think that the intelligence they gathered is a sideshow to distract them from the real target-one of the two candidates for President of the United States.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published April 15, 2011
29 people are currently reading
209 people want to read
About the author
Mark Terry
115 books37 followersMark Terry is the author of the Derek Stillwater thrillers, THE DEVIL'S PITCHFORK, THE SERPENT'S KISS, and THE FALLEN, as well as several standalone thrillers, including DIRTY DEEDS, CATFISH GURU, and DANCING IN THE DARK. Born in Flint, Michigan in 1964, he graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in microbiology and public health, which has informed his Derek Stillwater thrillers and other fiction. After spending 18 years working in clinical genetics, he turned to writing full time. When not writing or reading, Mark Terry is a gym rat, lifting weights, biking, running, kayaking, studying Sanchin-Ryu karate, and playing the guitar. Otherwise he spends his time with his wife and two sons in Michigan.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 6, 2018
One of the best thriller I've read so far!
May 10, 2018
Super
Super read. 2nd one by Terry this week. Looking for #3. Lots of suspense. A few too many characters with hard to pronounce names but I just nicknamed them.
Super read. 2nd one by Terry this week. Looking for #3. Lots of suspense. A few too many characters with hard to pronounce names but I just nicknamed them.
June 16, 2011
Smart, slick, fast and furious. I never rate a book 5 Stars. But I do this one. Easily the best thriller of the year. What an accomplishment. Not only does the author seem prescient in the story’s premise in the wake of the raid to kill bin Laden but the book is a perfect balance of plot, pacing, structure and character development with a subject that is very much in the forefront of much of the worlds mind.
The Valley Of Shadows is the fourth book in the Derek Stillwater series by one of my favorite authors, Mark Terry. Though the others, The Devil's Pitchfork, The Serpent's Kiss, The Fallen have all been some of the best action packed thrillers you’d ever want to read, Mark has out done himself in Valley. Derek is a more human character than super hero, showing traits of say the great hardboiled detectives. A loner, a tough guy who is also fallible. Think James Bond meets Phillip Marlowe.
The Plot:
US Special Forces raid an Al-Qaeda group in Pakistan. During the raid they confiscate two laptops. These laptops have been booby-trapped with bombs that will blow up in the soldiers' faces when opened. When the bombs are diffused and the laptops checked out, it is found that there are plans to carry out terrorist attacks in five major U.S. cities (Washington, DC, New York City, Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles). These attacks could involve dirty bombs, biological weapons and maybe even a suitcase nuclear attack on Election Day.
Derek is assigned to a Special Terrorism Activity Response Team (START) to find the weapons and the people who are bent on using them in Los Angeles, and stop the attack. His team has two days to accomplish this. As Derek and his team look for their targets things start to get interesting. There are multiple characters with different agendas, doing many things that provide dead ends and misdirection, and that’s just the good guys. The terrorists are just as bewildering and at time bewildered. Derek begins to think that somebody is not showing all their cards.
The Pace: Relentless. Mark Terry, with a master story tellers hand, drops details by the dozen, personal and real, but never to the point of bogging the story down. Instead they flesh out the characters; both the good guys and the bad guys.The tiny details of custom and beliefs makes the bad guys human and adds so much to the story. And the traits and foibles and personal details revealed of the good guys makes them that much more real, and in some cases not so ‘good’ or likeable. You can tell Mark did his home work, this is no mindless race of good verses evil and the details don’t slow the pace in the least. Think of them as the paint job on a race car, they make it easier to identify with the players. If there is such a thing as “literary thrillers” well, this is it. If half the authors writing in the genre today had Terry’s ability of pace and plot; to add all the details of both the protagonist and the bad guy and all those characters in between, they’d be teaching the genre in Masters classes at universities.
Read the full review at http://the-dirty-lowdown.blogspot.com/
The Valley Of Shadows is the fourth book in the Derek Stillwater series by one of my favorite authors, Mark Terry. Though the others, The Devil's Pitchfork, The Serpent's Kiss, The Fallen have all been some of the best action packed thrillers you’d ever want to read, Mark has out done himself in Valley. Derek is a more human character than super hero, showing traits of say the great hardboiled detectives. A loner, a tough guy who is also fallible. Think James Bond meets Phillip Marlowe.
The Plot:
US Special Forces raid an Al-Qaeda group in Pakistan. During the raid they confiscate two laptops. These laptops have been booby-trapped with bombs that will blow up in the soldiers' faces when opened. When the bombs are diffused and the laptops checked out, it is found that there are plans to carry out terrorist attacks in five major U.S. cities (Washington, DC, New York City, Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles). These attacks could involve dirty bombs, biological weapons and maybe even a suitcase nuclear attack on Election Day.
Derek is assigned to a Special Terrorism Activity Response Team (START) to find the weapons and the people who are bent on using them in Los Angeles, and stop the attack. His team has two days to accomplish this. As Derek and his team look for their targets things start to get interesting. There are multiple characters with different agendas, doing many things that provide dead ends and misdirection, and that’s just the good guys. The terrorists are just as bewildering and at time bewildered. Derek begins to think that somebody is not showing all their cards.
The Pace: Relentless. Mark Terry, with a master story tellers hand, drops details by the dozen, personal and real, but never to the point of bogging the story down. Instead they flesh out the characters; both the good guys and the bad guys.The tiny details of custom and beliefs makes the bad guys human and adds so much to the story. And the traits and foibles and personal details revealed of the good guys makes them that much more real, and in some cases not so ‘good’ or likeable. You can tell Mark did his home work, this is no mindless race of good verses evil and the details don’t slow the pace in the least. Think of them as the paint job on a race car, they make it easier to identify with the players. If there is such a thing as “literary thrillers” well, this is it. If half the authors writing in the genre today had Terry’s ability of pace and plot; to add all the details of both the protagonist and the bad guy and all those characters in between, they’d be teaching the genre in Masters classes at universities.
Read the full review at http://the-dirty-lowdown.blogspot.com/
May 23, 2012
Review:The Valley of Shadows by Mark Terry
4 STARS
This was a good thriller book. A little too much swearing is
the one thing I could have changed.
Intell from a raid on a terrorist cell where they came across a
computer that the bomb did not go off said they were
planning attack on voting day in 5 US cities.
A group of agents from FBI, Homeland security and
office of the Director of National Intelligence counterterrorism
will go to each of the 5 cities to try and stop it.
Derek Stillwater is not known as a team player. He is
assigned to LA. Derek has quite a rep. for getting things
done. people around him dying and breaking rules.
Derek gets into trouble from everyone it seems and
thats on the good guys side. He is very smart and
does not take everything at face value.
This is the first Derek Stillwater book that I have
read and I have enjoyed it. I would love to go and
read the earlier books.
I have messed up and not sure where I got this
ebook from. I know that I did not buy it and the
file I put it under says Librarything but don't show
getting it from thier or Netgalley. I do get emails
straight from Oceanview saying some books are
free at amazon right now. I did get it free and not
paid anything for my honest review.
06/07/2011 Oceanview Publishing 308 pages
4 STARS
This was a good thriller book. A little too much swearing is
the one thing I could have changed.
Intell from a raid on a terrorist cell where they came across a
computer that the bomb did not go off said they were
planning attack on voting day in 5 US cities.
A group of agents from FBI, Homeland security and
office of the Director of National Intelligence counterterrorism
will go to each of the 5 cities to try and stop it.
Derek Stillwater is not known as a team player. He is
assigned to LA. Derek has quite a rep. for getting things
done. people around him dying and breaking rules.
Derek gets into trouble from everyone it seems and
thats on the good guys side. He is very smart and
does not take everything at face value.
This is the first Derek Stillwater book that I have
read and I have enjoyed it. I would love to go and
read the earlier books.
I have messed up and not sure where I got this
ebook from. I know that I did not buy it and the
file I put it under says Librarything but don't show
getting it from thier or Netgalley. I do get emails
straight from Oceanview saying some books are
free at amazon right now. I did get it free and not
paid anything for my honest review.
06/07/2011 Oceanview Publishing 308 pages
October 4, 2012
The following is from the jacket inside the novel The Valley of Shadows. After reading that, how could I not want to plunge into this novel?!
“A raid on a Pakistan Al-Qaeda cell recovers two laptops. When the computers’ booby-traps are defused and the computers decrypted and translated, they indicate that Al-Qaeda has planned a series of simultaneous attacks in five U.S. cities involving potential dirty bombs, biological weapons and maybe even a nuclear weapon-on Election Day. Derek Stillwater, troubleshooter for the Department of Homeland Security, is assigned to a multi-jurisdictional Special Terrorism Activity Response Team (START) to locate the weapon and terrorists in Los Angeles and prevent the attack. They have two days. But as they close in on their targets, Derek begins to think that the intelligence they gathered is a sideshow to distract them from the real target-one of the two candidates for President of the United States.”
Full Review here at Novel Meals:
http://novelmeals.wordpress.com/2012/...
“A raid on a Pakistan Al-Qaeda cell recovers two laptops. When the computers’ booby-traps are defused and the computers decrypted and translated, they indicate that Al-Qaeda has planned a series of simultaneous attacks in five U.S. cities involving potential dirty bombs, biological weapons and maybe even a nuclear weapon-on Election Day. Derek Stillwater, troubleshooter for the Department of Homeland Security, is assigned to a multi-jurisdictional Special Terrorism Activity Response Team (START) to locate the weapon and terrorists in Los Angeles and prevent the attack. They have two days. But as they close in on their targets, Derek begins to think that the intelligence they gathered is a sideshow to distract them from the real target-one of the two candidates for President of the United States.”
Full Review here at Novel Meals:
http://novelmeals.wordpress.com/2012/...
July 24, 2011
I thought it was an amazingly well done thriller. A raid in Pakistan uncovers an al-queda plot to set off explosions in five US cities in two days. Dr. Derek Stillwater, an agent with homeland security, is assigned to one of several multi-agency teams assigned to track down the explosives and stop the terrorists. The team Stillwater is assigned to is dysfunctional to say the least and Stillwater is a loose cannon himself. As you go through the two days with the team you hardly have a chance to catch your breath - the pace is incredible. I found the characters to be well-developed and interesting, the plot incredibly realistic (even scary), the writing style exceptional, and the book impossible to put down. I also liked that Mr. Terry was not afraid to kill off characters that I had begun to develop a bond with because it brought true emotion into the book. I definitely plan to go back and read other books in this series.
August 26, 2011
The only reason that I am not giving this a 5 star rating is because of the language.
I was captured by the plot of this book from the opening pages. Derek and a team of people that run the gamut from FBI to HLS. This team called START is trying to protect the United States from the terrorist attacks that are discovered when an apartment is taken down in Pakistan.The real clincher of the book for me is how real the plot it. The terrorist could actually do what is written without much trouble. We like to think we are protecting ourselves but we are we?
I will be reading more from Mark Terry, language and all.
I was captured by the plot of this book from the opening pages. Derek and a team of people that run the gamut from FBI to HLS. This team called START is trying to protect the United States from the terrorist attacks that are discovered when an apartment is taken down in Pakistan.The real clincher of the book for me is how real the plot it. The terrorist could actually do what is written without much trouble. We like to think we are protecting ourselves but we are we?
I will be reading more from Mark Terry, language and all.
May 18, 2012
I picked this E-book up via Amazon's freebie listing. What a pleasant surprise.
Although this is the fourth in the Derek Stillwater series I really wasn't that lost as to character back story. There were a few references to past adventures and missions, but they weren't a distraction to the current story. The only exception to that was the prior relationship between Stillwater and O'Reilly (female protagonist). Without a doubt I will be going back and starting this series from the beginning.
All in all this is a very fast moving action novel with the main action split between Los Angeles and Pakistan.
Although this is the fourth in the Derek Stillwater series I really wasn't that lost as to character back story. There were a few references to past adventures and missions, but they weren't a distraction to the current story. The only exception to that was the prior relationship between Stillwater and O'Reilly (female protagonist). Without a doubt I will be going back and starting this series from the beginning.
All in all this is a very fast moving action novel with the main action split between Los Angeles and Pakistan.
July 25, 2012
The story follows a group of agents from various governmental anti-terrorism and law enforcement agencies trying to stop a homegrown terrorist cell attacking the US. This is a roller coaster ride from the first page until the last - not a book that can be read in short spurts to kill time. Once I picked it up I couldn't put it down and found myself so intrigued by the plot and characters that I couldn't stay away. Its unfortunate that Terry's books aren't all available digitally because Stillwater's character made me a fan and I just want more!
December 17, 2012
The plot started slowly, but certainly built to an explosive finish. Truly a thriller, even if there were lose threads left flapping in regard to some of the bit characters. I will have to see what else Mark Terry has written.
Read
May 16, 2012Started a bit slow but towards the end it got really good. Highly recommended
July 6, 2012
interesting story and good characters, a good read.
December 4, 2012
Pretty good book. I thought it jumped around a bit much and there were too many characters, but I enjoyed the book.
October 13, 2013
Am liking Derek Stillwater with each book I read = TV series please
Read
December 7, 2013False
November 20, 2014
Derrick Stillwater takes a beating but he keeps on ticking.
January 2, 2015
I liked the book. Derek Stillwater is very like John McClane of "Die Hard" fame. He takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews