The Shadows Trilogy (LANGSTON HAYES, #1)

Book I: City of Shadows
In the heart of Chicago's West Side, Mack Sterling is gunned down in a Kedzie alley—but death doesn't stick. Resurrected by the Umbra, a shadow entity forged from the city's pain, Mack becomes a reluctant vigilante. His Bulls jacket becomes armor, his grief a weapon. As he hunts corrupt cops and gang lords, his wife Crystal fights to protect their unborn son and lead a community uprising. But every kill feeds the very chaos Mack swore to stop.
- Book II: The Devil's Jingle
In Flint, Michigan, thirteen-year-old Kevin Lewis watches his best friend Malcolm vanish into a cursed ice cream truck. The city's poisoned water and buried history awaken a demonic force—the Lurker—that preys on grief and forgotten children. As Kevin, journalist Carla Hayes, and voodoo priestess Lena DuPont unravel the Black Legion's legacy, they confront a horror stitched from real-world injustice and supernatural dread.
- Book III: Red Summer Shadows
In 1919 Chicago, WWI veteran Dumas Sterling returns to Bronzeville only to find the war never ended—it just changed names. As racial violence erupts during the Red Summer, Dumas battles the Quiet Man, a vessel of the Saint of Ash, and uncovers a ritual conspiracy stretching from the trenches of France to the slaughterhouses of Chicago. His resurrection, stitched by his wife Celeste's ancestral magic, sets the stage for a century-long fight that echoes into the present.
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Trilogy of Shadows is a generational reckoning—a supernatural noir epic where trauma births power, memory becomes resistance, and love is the only tether against the dark. Told through emotionally charged prose and immersive worldbuilding, it's a living archive of Black resilience, mythic dread, and spiritual defiance.

Langston Hayes writes supernatural noir with Black protagonists, weaving together historical trauma, spiritual resistance, and mythic dread. As an indie publisher and digital entrepreneur, he builds immersive worlds that extend far beyond the page—through audio, visual art, and interactive lore.
The author of Echoes of Strength, City of Shadows, The Devil's Jingle, and the forthcoming Red Summer Shadows, Hayes blends emotionally resonant storytelling with practical marketing savvy, empowering other indie creators to amplify their voices without losing their soul.
When he's not writing, he's designing merch, building community platforms, and mapping the hidden corners of his fictional universes.