The man with no shadow

by Stephen Marlowe

261 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Aka Milton S. Lesser, Adam Chase, Andrew Frazer, Jason Ridgway, C.H. Thames.

Stephen Marlowe (1928–2008) was the author of more than fifty novels, including nearly two dozen featuring globe-trotting private eye Chester Drum. Born Milton Lesser, Marlowe was raised in Brooklyn and attended the College of William and Mary. After several years writing science fiction under his given name, he legally adopted his pen name, and began focusing on Chester Drum, the Washington-based detective who first appeared in The Second Longest Night (1955).

Although a private detective akin to Raymond Chandler’s characters, Drum was distinguished by his jet-setting lifestyle, which carried him to various exotic locales from Mecca to South America. These espionage-tinged stories won Marlowe acclaim, and he produced more than one a year before ending the series in 1968. After spending the 1970s writing suspense novels like The Summit (1970) and The Cawthorn Journals (1975), Marlowe turned to scholarly historical fiction. He lived much of his life abroad, in Switzerland, Spain, and France, and died in Virginia in 2008.

Marlowe received the Shamus Award, "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) in 1997.

Reviews

[Cathy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up on this book after one CD - 12% of the book. I hated the psychological testing the professor and his students were doing on Eli. It seemed like Margo was the only person who actually cared about him and that this testing for self-aggrandizement was just going to go on for decades - as long as this poor guy lived. Some of the testing tactics were set up just to trip him up, throw him off and confuse him for the professor’s audience to be entertained by, perhaps for grant renewal or fame. Anyway, I didn’t like where this book was going. Perhaps I am wrong, but after one CD, I’d had enough.

[Ghislain Lalonde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Très bon