Nope, Shadow's wife's dead. Sorry. That is one of a number of reasons why I loved American Gods better when I was a youth than I love it now. He is indeed motivated by having a dead wife -- although not in a, like, revenge way? So much as a, well now I have nothing, might as well do whatever this is with Ian McShane. Anyway I'm into the series, notionally. The casting seems like it's dynamite.