SOCIETY is today acutely aware of the scourge of criminal sexual exploitation of young children.
There is the awful evidence of this in the Rochdale child sex abuse ring involving under-age teenage girls in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
Nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences including rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child.
Forty-seven girls were identified as victims of child sexual exploitation during the police investigation.
This was not fiction but brutal and dark reality.
Further evidence that "sexplotation" is now prolific is the grooming and bullying and abuse on the Internet -a latter-day cyber phenomenon-that conjoins this with the actual physical abuse of the vulnerable in offscreen
Shadow Man is set up as a compelling, reflective thriller, centred in
Southern California, 1986 as Detective Ben Wade returns to his hometown in search of a quieter life and to try to save his marriage.
It presents as a prologue a community, with its "peaceful streets and neighbourly concerns", suddenly at the mercy of a serial killer who slips through windows and screen doors at night, shattering illusions of safety.
But it segues into confrontation of the present and the past as the lawman is unwillingly drawn into a crime that confronts his own disturbing sexual exploitation as a young teenager,
The fictional sexual grooming in this book took place 30 years ago and is far removed from today's threat.
But it existed and still exists to form the basis of compelling parallel storylines that mingle serial killing and teenage vulnerability to the predatory guiles of a sick mentor.
The serial killing aspect of the book is an adjunct to the main thrust - that of the tough detective addressing the shadows of his past.
Lust, love or manipulation? And the angst of youth when mentor support becomes a personal intrusion.
It can be an uncomfortable but compelling read.
The denouement is specific: justice is served by admission not omission - or silence.
In finding himself and confront tying his demons, the detective finally comes out of the shadow.
There is the awful evidence of this in the Rochdale child sex abuse ring involving under-age teenage girls in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
Nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences including rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child.
Forty-seven girls were identified as victims of child sexual exploitation during the police investigation.
This was not fiction but brutal and dark reality.
Further evidence that "sexplotation" is now prolific is the grooming and bullying and abuse on the Internet -a latter-day cyber phenomenon-that conjoins this with the actual physical abuse of the vulnerable in offscreen
Shadow Man is set up as a compelling, reflective thriller, centred in
Southern California, 1986 as Detective Ben Wade returns to his hometown in search of a quieter life and to try to save his marriage.
It presents as a prologue a community, with its "peaceful streets and neighbourly concerns", suddenly at the mercy of a serial killer who slips through windows and screen doors at night, shattering illusions of safety.
But it segues into confrontation of the present and the past as the lawman is unwillingly drawn into a crime that confronts his own disturbing sexual exploitation as a young teenager,
The fictional sexual grooming in this book took place 30 years ago and is far removed from today's threat.
But it existed and still exists to form the basis of compelling parallel storylines that mingle serial killing and teenage vulnerability to the predatory guiles of a sick mentor.
The serial killing aspect of the book is an adjunct to the main thrust - that of the tough detective addressing the shadows of his past.
Lust, love or manipulation? And the angst of youth when mentor support becomes a personal intrusion.
It can be an uncomfortable but compelling read.
The denouement is specific: justice is served by admission not omission - or silence.
In finding himself and confront tying his demons, the detective finally comes out of the shadow.