Six months have passed since Dakota surrendered herself to the Faceless League, and Silver City has become a war zone. With the Faceless League fighting for more control over the city, and Jasper and Alice nearly powerless against them, they have no other choice than to call upon Dakota's most dangerous allies. But in their heroic pursuit to cleanse Silver City of the evils that plague it once and for all, and save Dakota from a horrible fate unknown, they will find themselves face to face with their greatest enemy yet.
SHADOW tells the haunting story of Dakota Sterling and how she became the ruthless vigilante, Shadow, who -- alongside her partner, Jasper Beauregard (Sparrow) -- protects the very city which turned her into the monster that she is. Silver City is plagued by crime and corruption, most of which is owed to the secret underground railroading faction called the Faceless League, which kidnaps children and trains them to be barbarous assassins. Thirteen years ago, in the year 2004, the Faceless League targeted three very important, very wealthy children: Dakota Lovett, her younger brother, Wesley, and his best friend, Alice Fitzgerald. Dakota found herself to be an unlikely protector of the younger children when they discovered the faction had no intentions of returning them to their respective families. When young Wesley fell ill within the week that they were held hostage, proving himself to be too weak for the Faction’s liking, he was executed right in front of the girls. A distraught Dakota and fearful Alice plotted to escape the next night and their plan worked, but only Alice made it out. Dakota Lovett was left behind, and no one – not even Alice – ever knew what happened to her. Through analepsis, 20-year-old Alice recounts the days of her captivity in the Faceless Institute up until her miraculous escape in order to expose the faction. To Dakota Sterling, the little girl she was before she was recruited by the Faceless League has long since been dead. To ordinary girl Alice Grey, the past is the key to everything - she just doesn’t know it yet. As the Shadow does what is necessary to achieve justice and protect the people, she also struggles with her epic love for the equally-damaged Jasper. When Alice Grey sets out to find the Shadow's true identity, she opens old wounds, discovers even larger conspiracies hidden beneath the streets of the city she calls home and joins a dangerous game that she never meant to play.
The Greywald War has come to Silver City, at last, and it is up to Dakota Sterling, Alice Grey, and Jasper Beauregard to lead the Resistance and take down the Faceless League once and for all. When Alice becomes the sole inheritor of her father's empire -- leaving her with absolute control of the dirty politics of the city -- , and Dakota becomes the unlikely leader of the superhuman Resistance, both women struggle with their newfound roles of leadership and strive to break the bloody cycle of history their parents started so many years ago. However, as their childhood traumas come back to haunt them, they realize that they must delve into their pasts and unleash the demons that Evelyn Greywald sought to make of them as children if they have any hope of defeating her once and for all. They must become heroes and monsters alike. They must become their greatest hopes and worst fears in order to survive the final battle -- an epic showdown that will prove to be unlike anything they have ever seen before.
Winona Prescott has only ever known a life of embarking on great adventures alongside her mother, whose successful art career takes her all over the world. She knows exactly what she wants for her future -- college, then more travels to pursue her own blossoming talent for art -- and her mother is going to be by her side ready to take on the world with her. That pleasant dream of blissful certainty turns into an inescapable nightmare when her mother perishes in a car accident, throwing Winona into a world of disarray and grief that she has no idea how to handle on her own. When she is forced to live with her estranged father and a stepfamily she wants nothing to do with in the small town of Port Lowell, she finds herself trapped in a life that no longer feels like her own. Just when she thinks she can sink no lower into her grief, a mysterious girl named Julia Parker comes along and shows her how to find the light in the darkness through a series of rule-breaking adventures, party excursions, and meaningful walks on the beach. However, Julia shows her that nothing is quite what it seems in Port Lowell. When another life-changing event strikes close to home, Winona is forced to face the haunting memory of the night of her mother's crash once and for all, and do the most difficult thing she'll ever have to do in her life: say goodbye.
The author of more than 50 books--125 million copies in print--Clive Cussler is the current grandmaster of adventure literature. Dirk Pitt, the sea-loving protagonist of 22 of Cussler's novels, remains among the most popular and influential adventure series heroes of the past half-century. This first critical review of Cussler's work features an overview of Pitt and the supporting characters and other heroes, an examination of Cussler's themes and influences, a review of his most important adventures, such as Raise the Titanic! and Iceberg, and a look at adaptations of his work in other media. Cussler joins the pantheon of such as Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming, and this overdue volume demonstrates that beneath Cussler's immense popularity lies a literary depth that well merits scholarly attention.
