Cast a Yellow Shadow

Notes

Cast a Yellow Shadow by Ross Thomas is his second novel to feature McCorkle and Padillo. It follows on from Thomas’s first book, The Cold War Swap, which won the 1967 Edgar Award for best first novel.

The story is full of agents and double-agents, crosses and double-crosses, and Thomas’s indomitable dialogue.

Padillo rose from the couch and started to pace the small room. There wasn’t much space for it—five good steps, and then he had to turn and head back.

“You’re not making much headway,” I said.

“It’s called thinking.”

“I’d join you, except that there’s not enough room.”

Cast a Yellow Shadow by Ross Thomas

Publisher’s Synopsis

An old friend draws barman Mac McCorkle into a deadly international game.

As the saying goes, you can’t pick your friends. If you could, Mac McCorkle would disown Padilla. They owned a bar together in Bonn, the West German capital, and stayed partners even after Padilla’s sideline as a CIA operative got the bar blown up. Padilla was thought to be dead and erased from the CIA’s files — but now he’s back on the agency’s turf.

Mac moved to Washington, DC, after the trouble in Bonn to get married and open his bar anew. His new bride is beautiful, the bar is a success, and Padilla’s reappearance threatens everything. A group of African terrorists want Padilla to assassinate the prime minister of their small sub-Saharan republic — and they’ve kidnapped Mac’s wife to use as leverage.

“Ross Thomas is without peer in American suspense.” — The Los Angeles Times

Read a full review of Cast a Yellow Shadow by Ross Thomas at Bitter Tea and Mystery.