Rating: 
Summary: Warrior in the Shadows
Review: After finishing 'No Other Option', I made a bee line to the bookstore to get Marcus Wynne's latest. Warrior in the Shadows dances along the metaphysical with a tension underneath that builds till you can't stand it. I have to carefully turn certain pages so as to not accidently see ahead and spoil whats coming next in a sequence that is like being out on a recon mission. You feel as though you are there. I believe the author was.Gary Delaney
Rating: 
Summary: Bit of a slip, this time
Review: After reading NO OTHER OPTION, I could not wait to get my hands on Marcus Wynne's next thriller, WARRIOR IN THE SHADOWS. Perhaps because I thoroughly enjoyed NOO, I found this one to be a disappointment. Like the former, MW gives the reader some background about the antagonist, which I enjoyed, however, this time around I feel he leaned way too heavily on the mystical journey stuff. While I do read fantasy/sci-fi where this is often featured, I didn't see it as necessary for this kind of story. Maybe it took me by surprise as the previous book had none of this. MW writes men in action very well. Charley Payne is an interesting character. The one time CIA shooter tires of a life of violence and becomes a shooter of a different sort, a photographer who occasionally takes crime scene pix for the local police to help pay the rent. Alfie Woodard is an excellent villian. Abused as a youth because of his Aboriginal heritage, he finds a home in the SAS where he learns the killing arts. Later he hangs out in the Outback where he studies the dark arts with a witch doctor of sorts. He combines these skills to become an enforcer for an international drug dealer. The story has several large holes which are difficult to ignore. While I'm sure drug dealers will sometimes order someone killed in a particularly brutal fashion to send a message to others, I doubt they would approve of their hitman using such a distinctive M.O. time after time. The killing ritual, which includes cannabilism and wall painting with the victims bodily fluids seems excessively high profile and bound to draw some unwanted attention, which it does. Charley's current girlfriend just happens to know someone who is an expert in Aboriginal art and folklore. With little argument, she drops everything and flies halfway around the world with a man she just met to catch a killer with magical psychic powers. The climatic showdown, gets too entangled in the black magic stuff. Still, for it's flaws, Marcus Wynne knows how to tell a story. I never once considered not finishing this book. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if it was my first MW book. I look forward to BROTHERS IN ARMS, which I understand teams Charley Payne with the hero of No Other Option.
Rating:
Summary: Bit of a slip, this time
Review: After reading NO OTHER OPTION, I could not wait to get my hands on Marcus Wynne's next thriller, WARRIOR IN THE SHADOWS. Perhaps because I thoroughly enjoyed NOO, I found this one to be a disappointment. Like the former, MW gives the reader some background about the antagonist, which I enjoyed, however, this time around I feel he leaned way too heavily on the mystical journey stuff. While I do read fantasy/sci-fi where this is often featured, I didn't see it as necessary for this kind of story. Maybe it took me by surprise as the previous book had none of this. MW writes men in action very well. Charley Payne is an interesting character. The one time CIA shooter tires of a life of violence and becomes a shooter of a different sort, a photographer who occasionally takes crime scene pix for the local police to help pay the rent. Alfie Woodard is an excellent villian. Abused as a youth because of his Aboriginal heritage, he finds a home in the SAS where he learns the killing arts. Later he hangs out in the Outback where he studies the dark arts with a witch doctor of sorts. He combines these skills to become an enforcer for an international drug dealer. The story has several large holes which are difficult to ignore. While I'm sure drug dealers will sometimes order someone killed in a particularly brutal fashion to send a message to others, I doubt they would approve of their hitman using such a distinctive M.O. time after time. The killing ritual, which includes cannabilism and wall painting with the victims bodily fluids seems excessively high profile and bound to draw some unwanted attention, which it does. Charley's current girlfriend just happens to know someone who is an expert in Aboriginal art and folklore. With little argument, she drops everything and flies halfway around the world with a man she just met to catch a killer with magical psychic powers. The climatic showdown, gets too entangled in the black magic stuff. Still, for it's flaws, Marcus Wynne knows how to tell a story. I never once considered not finishing this book. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if it was my first MW book. I look forward to BROTHERS IN ARMS, which I understand teams Charley Payne with the hero of No Other Option.
Rating:
Summary: exciting police procedural
Review: Alfie Woodward combines the skills that he learned as an Australian Special Air Forces soldier with his Aboriginal spiritual beliefs to form an incredibly successful killing machine. He leaves behind quite a crime scene starring his latest victim, Minneapolis banker Madison Simmons as Alfie not only paints an Aboriginal painting using his victim's blood, he also strips meat and organs from the corpse, fries them, and eats them. Police Sergeant Bobby Lee Martaine heads the murder investigation that includes his military buddy Charley Payne as a civilian contract forensic photographer. Charley takes his copies of the weird photos to his artist girlfriend Mara Steinway who introduces him to Aboriginal art expert Kativa Patel. She explains the murder ritual of killing with a blunt object and eating the deceased to reduce their afterlife prowess, and concludes the portrait is the signature of the killer. When Bobby, his wife, and eight year old child is murdered, Charley knows that he has his own ritual to perform on the Aboriginal killer. Warrior in the Shadow is an exciting police procedural that grabs the audience with its opening salvo about Madison being eaten and never lets go until the final confrontation to include Kativa in the Outback. The superb story line is a police procedural thriller that enables the audience to observe a different much greater depth side than Crocodile Dundee provided. Marcus Wynne lives up to his surname with a winner that genre fans will devour, but not with bacon. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Kudos to Wynne: another winner
Review: Aside from the intelligent action, Marcus Wynne has the rare ability to blend charasmatic depth to his central characters. This is a rare skill in the action genre. Im on the road 160 days a year and go through books very quickly...I know a book is great when I dont want it to end...I felt that way with both of Marcus's books, you cant' but help like the characters. Wynne's books are now on my short list of authors... if youre looking for orginal stories, subtle and witty dialogue, read both his books. Tony Blauer
Rating:
Summary: Kudos to Wynne: another winner
Review: Aside from the intelligent action, Marcus Wynne has the rare ability to blend charasmatic depth to his central characters. This is a rare skill in the action genre. Im on the road 160 days a year and go through books very quickly...I know a book is great when I dont want it to end...I felt that way with both of Marcus's books, you cant' but help like the characters. Wynne's books are now on my short list of authors... if youre looking for orginal stories, subtle and witty dialogue, read both his books. Tony Blauer
Rating:
Summary: READ IT!
Review: Awesome plot development, characters and overall story. Wynne is a fine author and a great operator. Why read the rest when you can read a book by someone who has been there? Wynne never fails to keep the pages turning!
Rating:
Summary: Outback battles
Review: Good action with some mystical stuff thrown in. The author knows his stuff and it shows, I await his next work.
Rating:
Summary: A huge dropoff from his first one
Review: I loved Mr. Wynne's first book, but this one was just too much to swallow. Even if I believed in the Australian black magic upon which so much of the plot depends, isn't it a bit too much of a coincidence that the hero's main squeeze that has a girlfriend in Minneapolis with an encyclopedic knowledge of said black magic and Australian geography? Further, this girl hops on a plane with him after spending one night with him, rocketing to Australia to risk her life to avenge a the death of a cop she never met? If you've read Mr. Wynne's first book and plan to read his third, this one is a must because the third book has the heroes of the first two meeting and teaming up. If you haven't and are looking to give Mr. Wynne's work a test drive, try "No Other Option" instead. Mr. Wynne gets two of his three stars for technical knowledge alone, and a third for the way he made the bad guy almost likeable. The fourth and fifth stars would have been for a realistic and gripping plot, but sadly this book had neither. It's not a bad way to kill a flight, but if you've read "No Other Option," this is going to disappoint you.
Rating:
Summary: Dining with death
Review: Marcus Wynne makes the unbelievable believable and the unreal real, as his former CIA-agent hero is drawn into a series of ritual murders in modern Minneapolis. Wynne leads us halfway around the world into an aboriginal dream world as two powerful men meet in the Australian bush for an inevitable and ultimate clash. You will want to slow down so that the book won't end, while Wynne is nudging you to turn to the next page. It isn't easy to pause even for a short break. Hang onto your didgeridoo. This one is a keeper.
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