In a city where night never falls, a serial killer is stalking the well-lit streets and the daughter of an influential industrialist has gone missing. John Nyquist must navigate the complex timelines of Dayzone to find one and elude the other.

A Man Of Shadows is a weirdly speculative, cross-genre noir, which made it a tricky proposition for me. Washed-up, middle-aged blokes with ex-wives and haunted pasts are amongst my least favourite protagonists however much I may come to enjoy their dogged persistence or unhinged desperation. Thankfully, while characters and plot left me mostly cold, the worldbuilding was fascinating.

This secondary world (or is it?) is a speculative art house horror, a city where day and night are separate physical zones connected by a train ride through the terrifying mists of Dusk. Dark never falls on the streets of Day, and its concept of time is uniquely personal: tycoon Patrick Bale has cornered the market in selling timelines to all. Personal, corporate, political, geographical and official timelines all co-exist, leaving you to work out when you are from one street corner to the next.

The result is as surreal as it is overwhelming; a setting designed to induce nervous exhaustion. It provides an unnerving backdrop for Nyquist’s dime a dozen case as it escalates into a harrowing mission, stretching his reason and forcing him into otherworldly Dusk in his attempts to understand the Bale family’s dysfunctions and find their missing daughter.

Unfortunately, I found the brilliantly-drawn cameos from secondary / tertiary characters more interesting than the main cast, which hewed to a traditional mould. Nyquist never exceeded his tropes for me, and the lack of a compelling reason for his obsession over Eleanor Bale made it awkward long before they ended up sharing a hotel room.

That made the final act swerve into weird fantasy very welcome – had this played out sooner, I might have ended up more enthusiastic about the whole affair, which becomes more and more the sort of Noonian mirror world I fell in love with in my twenties. While I won’t be reading the sequels, I do recommend A Man Of Shadows to readers who are fonder of noir than I am. This is a well-executed example of a subgenre I don’t love, but it’s fabulously atmospheric and the brain-breaking worldbuilding alone is worth the price of entry.

Not an easy book to read, but very unusual and with some great ideas. I liked the more scifi parts of it, less so the parts where it got slightly stuck into a noir crime trope. For sheer originality, full marks.

This was such an intriguing concept for a book, and I'm always amazed at the inventive ideas portrayed in Sci-fi or Fantasy novels. The writing was well done, and I'm curious to see what the rest of the books in this series are like.

The first novel in the John Nyquist series. [Read this a while ago, but forgot to post the review.]
Another interesting novel from Noon - an author who has been recommended to me so very often, but who I'm only slowly becoming familiar with. It's a strange, complex and ambitious science fiction mystery/noir. It's also very well-written and executed.
An interesting start to a series. Looking forward to reading the next novel.

Gave up on this one about 1/4 of the way in. The premise sounded interesting, and I have often liked other novels that blend detective stories with sci-fi/fantasy settings. But this book has far too much description and not enough plot, character development, or narrative coherence. The noir detective elements are too stereotypical by far, and the world building, while full of cool ideas on its face, falls apart completely when you think about the details even a tiny bit. I'd already been slogging through, and decided not to slog any further.

Unfortunately, this was not a good book for me.

Sigo intentando ponerme al día con las recomendaciones del último programa de los VerdHugos de lecturas del 2018 y en esta ocasión le tocaba a Jeff Noon y su A Man of Shadows. Os preguntaréis cuándo me voy a poner a leer lo del año 2019, pero la respuesta está clara… en 2020.

El concepto en el que se basa la novela es fascinante. Una ciudad en la que coexisten diversas líneas temporales a las que cada persona va saltando por el simple procedimiento de cambiar la hora en su reloj. Dicho así parece fácil, pero si con dos cambios de hora al año a muchos de nosotros ya nos vuelven locos, imaginaos lo que un tránsito constante puede llegar a causar. Y sin embargo, no hay apenas conflictos, al menos aparentemente. La ciudad que nos ocupa, además, está dividida en dos partes, como el día y la noche. En una parte siempre hay luz, con una cantidad de luminarias e instalaciones eléctricas que serían el sueño dorado de cualquier directivo de Endesa mientras que en la parte oscura ocurre todo lo contrario. Y existe una zona intermedia no muy bien definida que es el sustrato para todas las pesadillas de sus habitantes.
Partiendo de esta base indudablemente fascinante, Noon nos cuenta una historia noir de detectives muy en consonancia con el entorno, pero que de alguna forma falla en su intento narrativo. El hilo le permite hacernos visitar las distintas zonas de la ciudad desde las más luminosas a las que representan la oscuridad total y es innegable el interés que pueda suscitar cada una de ellas, pero la falta de carisma del personaje principal y de la historia da al traste con el resto de la novela.
El autor juega bastante bien con la ambigüedad y la dualidad inherente a la propia definición de la ciudad y por lo tanto el desenlace no debería sorprendernos tampoco. La presencia de un asesino al que nadie es capaz de ver actuar a pesar de que lleva a cabo sus acciones en público le añade algo de salsa a la mezcla, pero por desgracia el libro no acaba de cuajar a pesar de los buenos ingredientes de los que partía.

A well-written mystery! It is clear that Jeff Noon had put a lot of thought and planning into the creation of this story.

The one sentence, attention-getting note on Goodreads before the book description reads: "The brilliant, mind-bending return to science fiction by one of its most acclaimed visionaries." Now I can't say that I've read anything by Jeff Noon before this, so I can't speak to this being a 'return' to science fiction or his being a visionary. I will say, however, that this book is indeed mind-bending.

John Nyquist is a private detective and not a particularly discriminating one. He takes on a case of tracking down a missing teenager. His search takes him from the comfort and safety of Dayzone to the dark, often frightening streets of Nocturna. Meanwhile, a serial killer has been killing his way through the area, invisible and with tremendous speed - giving him the nickname 'Quicksilver.' But as Nyquist gets deeper into his search for the missing teenage girl, he begins to suspect that she may have a connection to the Quicksilver murders, but getting more information about the possible connection will take Nyquist into Dusk - a shadowy zone that no one wants to spend much time in.

This book is ... well, to go back to the Goodreads quote ... mind-bending. Imagine Time as not just a concept that we measure and pretend to know with things like clocks and calendars, but as an actual, physical commodity that can be taken away or controlled, the way we can with money or currency. Hard to grasp the idea? I understand. But Noon's novel works on this premise - where time in one area isn't just measured differently, it actually works or moves differently.

This was a hard concept for me to visualize, I'll admit. I've read a fair number of time-travel books (this is NOT a time travel story), so I'm not new to stories that work with the concept of time being fluid, but this was definitely on a new level for me. And while I may have been confused, it was very clear to me that in Noon's world this made sense and I trusted the storyteller to keep it as clear as possible for me. And he did.

The mystery itself is very well done. We're led down a couple of false paths and the discovery Nyquist makes isn't a complete surprise - Noon gives us the same clues - but the storytelling...! Getting there is so much fun in this world!

I highlighted a one sentence description that Noon gives us as we meet a character: "The mother of Eleanor Bale was a living ghost of a once startlingly beautiful woman." This simple sentence is so beautiful and gave me such a vivid picture of the character. This sort of writing is why we pick up fiction and let ourselves get carried away.

This book is what we once called 'Speculative Fiction' crossed with a classic noir mystery and it's extremely well done. This definitely makes me want to seek out Noon's previous works and stay tuned for further adventures (especially those in John Nyquist's world).

Looking for a good book? <em>A Man of Shadows</em> by Jeff Noon is a brilliant, richly dark sci-fi/fantasy mystery that will engage and challenge the reader.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This is a dark, noir, crazily inventive, weird science fiction book.

Nyquist is a detective (rather by the numbers sadly, drunk, pursuing a case no matter what even though we don't know why, a total mess) who lives in a strange city of three parts. One, the Dayzone, forever cast in artificial light, another Nocturna, where it is permanently dark and fake constellations show people the way home, and another the mysterious Dusk, where people can hardly take one footstep after another without going completely mad.

He is ruled, as if everyone else, by time - in this city there are probably thousands of different timezones you can choose to live in/by.

It's a fascinating world, beautifully described - so much so that at times the story feels a little lost behind the description. I was hard pushed at times to keep on reading. It felt easier to put the book down and clear my head a little. Nyquist is often confused and, like dusk in the book, it sort of spreads to the reader.

I was more interested in the girl he is hired to find - Eleanor Bale - but she is mostly a figure in the distance, always out of reach and barely knowable.

I persevered and eventually was able to let the stuff about timezones and lights wash over me, and by about 60 per cent of the way in I discovered the plot. But my, it was tough getting there.

The writing is often very good - the story I am less sure about.

This is a really twisty turny sci-fi detective story with some fantastic ideas and a suitably laconic protagonist. It tells the story of John Nyquist, a private detective in the split city of Dayzone and Nocturna - one of which is always in light and the other is always dark. Here, there are numerous different timelines available to residents and when Nyquist is tasked with finding a missing teenage girl, things start unravelling pretty quickly. I thought the tone was really great - it's dark and sombre and there is a thread of danger that runs throughout. Nyquist is a fairly standard PI, which means he drinks a lot and doesn't work well with others and these noir elements really mesh well with the futuristic aspects of the narrative. There is an awful lot going on here and there were times when it got a little bit muddled, but overall, I found this to be a really engaging and original story and Im looking forward to reading more of Noon's work.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A twisted mix of science fiction and noir, this mind bending time turning book, while a little complicated and bizarre at times, was a riveting and absorbing read. Nyqvuist, the detective at the centre of the story is an intriguing character, and I would love to know more of his back story, so I am hoping that there will be more to come. The mystery at the heart of the book has a pleasantly dark twist, but my favourite thing about the book is the setting, a world divided by time, where time is no longer constant, and where part of the city lives constantly at night, while others spend their lives in the daytime.

Man of Shadows by Jeff Noon is, at its heart, a noir detective novel. It’s set in a surreal city where timelines are a saleable commodity and geography is divided into permanent day and night with a terrifying “Dusk” zone separating them. It follows detective John Nyquist as he struggles with his own demons as he tries to protect a teenage runaway from a serial killer called Quicksilver who can strike and disappear in an instant. Noon’s story is immersive and satisfying and he succeeds in fleshing out this strange time and place.

Billed as science fiction, this read more like a classic detective mystery with bits and bobs of science fiction thrown in. Although I found it entertaining enough, there wasn't really enough substance or world building to pull me into the story. I wanted to read more about the world than the plot.

A very descriptive story that draws you in. This is a quick read which keeps you turning the pages. It is not my normal type of book and I would like to read another book by Jeff Noon before I decide what I think of his writing style.

My wish for this title was granted but when I tried to download it, less than an hour after being notified of approval, I saw that the book had already archived. I am therefore unable to download, read or review this book.

John Henry Nyquist is a private investigator living in Nocturna and working (mostly) in Dayzone. Like most PI's he has a cash-flow situation to manage and has to take what jobs he can to pay his way.

This latest job involves find a rich girl who has run away from home, her powerful father wants her back.

Somehow the case gets more complicated - the Quicksilver murders start to have an impact on things, and for the life of him, Nyquist can't quite remember why!

His continual switching across time zones begins to affect him and he starts to think he is becoming to suffer from chronostasis.

Yet he continues on, driven, with his inner clock, tick, tick, ticking, keeping him moving onwards. Exploring Dayzone, the Dusk and Nocturna. Moving closer to his moment.

If anything, this book make me edgy, anxious and from time to time I paused in my reading. It was a complex story, fantastic and ghostly. I enjoyed it, yet as I said, I had to keep pausing and coming back to it. I didn't settle in to it as I would have liked.

This is a fascinating read. It's a hard-boiled detective story - a bit noir, you know - set in the strangest alternative world I've come across. It's a world where day and night are places, not times, and where there are shadowy businessmen intent on offering personalised timezones to everyone. The shifts between timezones, the playing with time, the confusion it creates - these are all part of the background to a thumping plot. There's not much exposition, so you can just go with the flow.

Day is a place where you can live and party 24/24, where the people around you are on their own schedule. Night is a place to retreat to. Dusk is a dangerous place, where nothing is as it seems.

There are moments of real lyrical beauty in this book, and images that have stayed with me. In one scene our hero climbs a skyscraper, trying to find the real sky. That journey is brief, but beautifully conceived.

I feel like I've discovered a new author to follow.

Just started this book but have to shout to the winds even before I am a 10th of the way through. I am already immersed in this amazing world, this is going to be such a brilliant Christmas read. From the beginning so far, think Philip Marlowe with clocks and time totally haywire. Have I sparked your interest?

Really enjoyed this unusual and sometimes bewildering book

I was sent an e-copy of A Man of Shadows by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This book first caught my eye as I was scrolling looking for interesting upcoming books and I couldn’t help but be disappointed when it said they weren’t accepting any more requests for it. But I took a chance, wished for it and my wish came true! A Man of Shadows arrived safely to my kindle and I dived right in!

The brilliant, mind-bending return to science fiction by one of its most acclaimed visionaries

Below the neon skies of Dayzone – where the lights never go out, and night has been banished – lowly private eye John Nyquist takes on a teenage runaway case. His quest takes him from Dayzone into the permanent dark of Nocturna.

As the vicious, seemingly invisible serial killer known only as Quicksilver haunts the streets, Nyquist starts to suspect that the runaway girl holds within her the key to the city’s fate. In the end, there’s only one place left to search: the shadow-choked zone known as Dusk.

This book was way more abstract than I initially imagined it would be. The originality of the dystopia plot line was something that drew me to the book in the first place, but nothing can prepare you for the sci-fi web that is woven between these pages. I really have to hand it to the author for keeping on top of this complex setting, as well as weaving a brilliant novel of mysteries and thrills.

Our protagonist, the private investigator John Henry Niquist is hired by Bale, a rich businessman in Nocturna whose daughter, Eleanor has run away. The sci-fi/ dystopia twist is that in this 1959 American region, there exists a city concealed by a dome; Dayzone where they have lamps and bulbs everywhere to drive out the dark, and Dusk, a mysterious and generally inhabited area which lies on the edge of the zone. Since time relies on tracking the earth’s orbit around the sun, the people in these zones, as well as the nearby city of Nocturna – existing in perpetual darkness, live majorly on personal timelines, adjusting to common ones when they go to work etc.

As Niquist journeys to the strange city in search of his client’s daughter, he comes across many darker corners of Dayzone where light and time addicts convene and lose themselves, sometimes forever. What is strange, is that as the mystery and search continues, it would appear that Eleanor Bale has something to do with the mysterious killer Quicksilver, whom no one has seen; a fog will fall on the local where he is to attack, and someone will then drop dead from a knife wound. No one sees Quicksilver in action, and he leaves almost no trace – other than the unfortunate victim.

As far as the plot is concerned, this was an enjoyable read; the ongoing mystery of Quicksilver, and Eleanor’s determination to run away keeps the reader engaged in the story. Admittedly around half way through the timeline story was becoming very confusing, but I tried not to dwell too much on it and concentrated on the story. I think you’ll end up like the people in the book if you try to keep up with all the timelines!

Niquist also deals with his own demons, clearly an alcoholic and suffering from trauma since childhood; events that have scarred his life transmit to his surroundings. The two protagonists are not two to get along, but they must work together to determine what Quicksilver is, and how it is connected with Miss Bale. Her mother has been driven mad – we assume by some timeline trouble, and her father is not letting on everything about his slightly dysfunctional family – facts which could aid Niquist in his investigations.

Overall I did enjoy this book; as I mentioned it was slightly confusing during the middle chapters, but in all an enjoyable read. It was a breath of fresh air, mixing multiple genres – sci-fi, dystopia, a slight fantasy – together to create a really unique story. SOme dark twists keeps the audience engaged, and develops a great atmosphere.

I am rating this book 4*/5. For fans of thriller, sci-fi, and dystopia books.