Review: Three Callahans For The Price of One, Hell Yes
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 20, 2011
There are a number of authors, who for me anyway, fall into the must read categories.  Harry Shannon is one of these authors.  And with the dawning of the E-book era it has made it so much easier for me to get my hands on these books.  A few years back a friend handed me a copy of the first Callahan novels.  I was instantly hooked, however as was the case, it was almost impossible to get my hands on the other two Callahan novels.  Especially at a price that I could justify spending.Now however Harry Shannon has kindly bundled all three novels together, in one digital edition all for the excellent price of 3.51.  That's right folks three excellent novels for less than the price of a traditional paperback.We are introduced to Callahan in Memorial Day.  Here we find Callahan, a former television talk show psychiatrist, who has fallen from grace to the lowly heights of a local radio show presenter.  Callahan has a chance to make it big again.  Only problem is there is still a mystery as to why a caller to his radio show was murdered.  So Callahan heads out to solve the murder.In Eye of the Burning Man, we find Callahan back at the top, his career resurrected, but as things are with these sorts of books his happiness won't last for long.  Enter Mary the woman who saved his life in the Memorial Day.  When she is kidnapped from her own home, Callahan rounds up his buddies and goes o rescue her from a bunch of psychos at The Burning man FestivalsOne of the Wicked sees Callahan reluctantly agrees to watch the girl. He summons his eccentric friends to assist, and tries to get back to his career. But when Bud Stone decides the fastest way to fix the problem is to steal drug money from a local gang leader, all hell breaks loose. A surprising new character enters Mick's life. Brandi DeLillo disappears. Mick gets kidnapped, beaten and dragged to the construction site of an eye-popping new casino in Nevada's Valley of Fire. There are sinister strippers, murdered goons and weird bodyguards. We meet a giant European hit man and a mysterious gambler called ET. Once again, poor Mick is up to his neck in violence. Only this time he's also on the run from both the mob and the lawThese novels all show what can be done with a mystery novel, when the author goes to the trouble of creating a well thought out and complex set of characters.  It's clear that Harry Shannon has drawn on his own experiences as a psychiatrist, in creating Callahan.  Callahan is a more complex and realised character than those normally found in these sorts of novels.The stories themselves are brilliantly told, well plotted and well written.  Harry has a style of writing that completely sucks you into the story, and before you know it half your day is gone, and you've just finished one hell of a read