Iron Shadows Review

Reviewed by J.G. Stinson

TV screenwriter Barnes has collaborated on SF novels with Larry Niven, as well as writing solo novels (The Kundalini Equation, Blood Brothers, and Beowulf's Children among the latter). His Hollywood experience is reflected in Iron Shadows — you can just see these characters in a TV show. But it'd have to be on a cable channel like HBO or Showtime, because the subject matter definitely rates an adult audience.

Cat Juvell and Jackson Carpenter are both former Los Angeles Police Department officers who've opened a private investigations firm with Cat's brother Tyler, who was crippled in a childhood accident. Their California firm is hired by a wealthy man to track down the client's sister, believed to be a member of a cult-like, Oregon-based group called the Golden Sun. The client claims he just wants to make sure his sister is making a sane decision regarding the signing over of her share of the inheritance to the group. Given all the news in the last few decades about cults, brainwashing and "de-programming," this is easy enough to take at face value.

But there's a whole lot more going on underneath the surface of the client's story, and in the novel as a whole. Every character in this story has their own secrets, their own "iron shadows" which haunt them in unguarded moments and govern their reactions in certain situations.

As former police officers, Juvell and Carpenter can be expected to possess certain skills in firearms and hand-to-hand combat. But upon first introduction, Barnes almost ruins their credibility by giving them cartoon-like physical features. Carpenter is an Incredible Hulk with glasses and a chocolate skin tone, and Juvell is a Tinkerbell with an attitude. Fortunately, Barnes' solid characterization and competent dialogue skills are able to pull these two out of their initial comic-book setting and into life as people you might have once met.

Comic books, especially the modern version, can be every bit as complex and character-driven as a novel, but — especially in the superhero category — there's still that element of physical believability the reader has to accept before all the rest works. If a reader decides not to believe, then the rest of the work ultimately fails. It's the writer's job to make everything else in that world so convincing and interesting that the reader is sucked into it before realizing it's wrapped in pumped-up muscles and angst. Barnes certainly knows this, whether he learned it from comics or not, because I found myself racing to the end to find out what happened.

Barnes' mix of powerful heroes, dark secrets, a sex-based cult with a hidden agenda, guns and martial-arts-action scenes keep the pace moving just fast enough to maintain attention, but not so fast that one gets lost. The Tantric-sex elements of the Golden Sun's philosophical foundation (which acts as the honey trap for initiates) appears to have been well-researched. Barnes wisely leaves out the unusual body contortions in favor of focusing on the relationship benefits of intimate concentration. The cult's sexual relationship-building techniques are much like those apparently used by contemporary sex therapists , and add to the believability of the story.

Iron Shadows crosses the borders between the soft SF, horror and action genres. Readers who don't mind a bit of gore and guns with their scares won't be overwhelmed, and those looking for a dark SF read should also be ... satisfied.