Cody McFadyen - Abandoned (Smoky Barrett series, Book 4)

For FBI Special Agent Smoky Barrett, the wedding of one of their own was cause for celebration. Until a woman staggered down the aisle, incoherent, emaciated, head shaved, and wearing only a white nightgown.

No one knows who she is or where she's come from—or why she’s chosen to appear in a church filled with law enforcement agents. Then a fingerprint check determines that the woman has been missing for nearly eight years—that once she was someone's wife, someone's mother…and a cop. Imprisoning her in a dark cell, depriving her of any contact with the outside world, her enigmatic captor was a man she didn't know and who seldom spoke, who punished her only when she failed to follow his most basic instructions designed to keep her alive.

Cold, businesslike, seemingly indifferent to his victims, he's a predator with an M.O. as terrifyingly inscrutable as any Smoky has ever encountered. As she fits together the pieces of what remains of his victim's fractured life, a chilling picture emerges of a killer every bit as calculating, masterful, and professional as Smoky and the team she leads—a professional psychopath who doesn't take murder personally and never makes a mistake.

There's a reason he let one of his victims go free. And by the time Smoky pierces the darkness of his twisted mind, it may cost her more than she can bear to lose to escape. For a trap snapped closed the moment she took this case too much to heart.

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FBI special agent Smoky Barrett celebrates her best friends wedding day when the ceremony is concluded by a woman dumped out of a car in front of the church. She was tortured and looks like her skin hasn't seen the sunlight in a very long time.

The victim is identified as homicide detective Heather Hollister who vanished years earlier. Her husband just recently had her declared dead and received a huge insurance payment.
Meeting the husband Smoky and friend and colleague Alan find his wife and one of his sons killed. Eventually the husband admits to have met a man on the internet who offered him a way out of a bad marriage by having his wife vanish and receiving half the insurance money after seven years. When the husband declined the payment heater was released.

Because Heather isn't the first case across the U.S. it seems that someone offers husbands a way out of bad marriages by kidnapping the wives and keeping them locked away for years.

The case gets very personal when the kidnapper recognizes Smoky's internet trap and kidnaps her and young computer expert Leo.

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Cody McFadyen is one of my favorite writers. His different approach to serial killers, who are almost always out of the box in what they do to their victims, usually gets to me right in the beginning.
Unfortunately with this one my expectations were already high after I received the latest newsletter from the author's website. The plot sounded delicious but couldn't keep up with the promises that were made. It almost wasn't dark enough.

However, without thinking about the newsletter Abandoned is a nice addition to the series. It doesn't top the first two novels but still is a frightening tale.

Rating:
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Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Bantam (October 27, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0553806955
ISBN-13: 978-0553806953

Cody McFadyen - The Darker Side (Smoky Barrett Series, Book 3)

Everyone has a secret they don't dare tell anyone.

He'll kill you for yours.

A lie, a long-ago affair, a dark desire - everyone has secrets they take to the grave. No one knew that better than FBI special agent Smoky Barrett. But what secret was a very young woman keeping that led to her very public murder ?
And what kind of killer was so driven and so brazenly daring that he'd take her life on a commercial airliner thirty thousand feed in midair, a killer so accomplished that he'd leave only a small souvenir behind ?

These are the questions that bring Smoky and her handpicked team of experienced manhunters from L. A. to the autumn chill of Washington, D. C., by order of the FBI director himself - and special request of a high-pwred grieving D. C. mother.

As a mother, Smoky knows the pain of losing a child - it nearly killed her once before. As a cop with her own twisted past, she takes every murder personally, which is both her greatest strength and her only weakness.
Brilliant, merciless, righteous, the killer Smoky is hunting this time is on his own personal mission, whose cost in innocent human lives he's only begun to collect.
For in his eyes no on is innocent; everyone harbors a secret sin, including Smoky Barrett.

Soon Smoky will have to confront a flawless killer who knows her flaws with murderous intimacy.

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In this third novel Smoky Barrett and her team are summoned to Virginia, near Washington, D. C. to investigate the murder of Lisa Reid, born Dexter Reid, the almost transgendered son of Texas congressman Dillon Reid who's talked to be the next president of the United States. The victim was killed during a flight in mid air, the heart punctuated and a little cross with the number 143 stuck into the puncture wound.

When a second victim is found the team knows Reid's death wasn't necessaryly an act against the congressman but rather something the deceased had in common with the new victim. The M. O. similar to Read's, the new victims cross carries the number 142.
Is it possible there was a killer flying under the radar for years who killed 143 people ?

The team struggles to paint a picture of the person they are searching when online videos appear about the killing of Lisa Reid and all the other victims. They all had something in common: They sinned in their life. Homosexuality, sex, drugs, alcohol, infidelity, no sin is forgiven and The Preacher is going to get them.

Smoky's only way to find the perp is to figure out how he learned about his victims sins and the race against time begins with the announcement the next victim will be a child.

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Although this novel can't keep up with the last two books, it keeps a lot of info about the characters in McFadyen's series. Revealing their secrets, flaws and feelings. Smoky's struggle to allow herself to be happy in her now since two years lasting relationsship with Tommy, James's gayness, Alan's alcohol abuse and Callie's Vicodin addiction and even Kirby, who's been introduced in the second books and seems to have become a part of the family has to reveal one of her secrets at the end.
They are a family kept together by shattered dreams, loss and eyes that saw too much.

The whole book seems to evolve slowly but is non the less enjoyable to read and learn about the characters. I really liked it and it was about time to learn a bit more.

Rating:
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Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Bantam (September 30, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0553806947
ISBN-13: 978-0553806946

Cody McFadyen - The Face of Death (Smoky Barrett Series, Book 2)

"I want to talk to Smoky Barrett or I kill myself."

The girl is sixteen, at the scene of a grisly triple homicide, and has a gun to her head. She claims "the Stranger" killed her adoptive family, that he's been following her all her life, killing everyone she ever loved, and that no one believes her.

No one has. Until now.

Special Agent Smoky Barrett is head of the violent crime unit in Los Angeles, the part of the FBI reserved for tracking down the worst of the worst. Her team has been handpicked from among the nation's elite law enforcement specialists and they are as obsessed and relentless as the psychos they hunt; they'll have to be o deal with this case.

For another vicious double homicide reveals a killer embarked on a dark crusade of trauma and death; an "artist" who's molding sixteen-year-old Sarah into the perfect victim - and the ultimate weapon- But Smoky Barrett has another, more personal reason for catching The Stranger - an adopted daughter and a new life that are worth protecting at any cost.

This time Smoky is going to have to put it all on the line. Because The Stranger is all too real, all too close, and all too relentless. And when he finally shows his face, if she's not ready to confront her worst fear, Smoky won't have time to do anything but die.

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Smoky Barrett and her team are the best of the best the FBI has to offer. They are the Violent Crime Unit. Minddivers skilled in diving into the minds of psychopaths.
Together with her adoptive daughter Bonnie, who lost her mother, Smoky's best friend, through the hands of a serial killer, they both begin to feel happy again. Embracing their new life, allowing themselves to be happy.

When Smoky receives a phone call she is needed at a triple homicide crime scene it seems odd that a girl is standing there holding a gun to her head demanding to speak to Smoky.
Her story: A stranger killed her new adoptive family. He took everything she ever cared for and everybody who every care for her including her parents 10 years ago and no one every believed her that she had to witness her parents death and two of her Foster families death.
The team soon learns the girl is speaking the truth and the investigation begins.

Up against a killer who seems disorganized but isn't, who is up to date what they do, they discover a cobweb of manipulate, threatened people around Sarah Langstorm. People who haven't spoken up for years to safe their lifes and the lifes of those they love.
The killer's goal is revenge, ruin the life of Sarah Langstorm, make her what he has become, shattered and crazy. The clues the team finds seems to be placed years in advance by this killer and nothing they find seems to be real or lead them further away.

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When I read the first book Shadow Man in this series I knew I found a writer wholly satisfying me as the reader. I didn't expect to find a writer who gets to me emotionally - again.
I thought the little girl tied to her dead mother in book one got to me and there can't be any more more shocking until I read this book and dove into the strong emotions of a 16year-old recounting the story of her life, the witness of her parents murder in detail and those of her Foster families. I was wrong.
McFadyen is a genius who makes you feel for every single victim in his book. He makes you care, putting intensity in his books that create goosebumps and touches the heart. When I read the diary Sarah had written for Smoky I literally felt the terror but also felt the little happy things in her life shortly before they got taken away from her.

Overall there are a lot of characters coming into the book, playing an important role in what happened to Sarah and I absolutely admire that there is not a single loose end in end. I wonder if the book was written backwards and how the author made it to create a story such tight it takes your breath away.
I read an article in which McFadyen mentioned he didn't want anyone to read it and get away unscathed and for me, he archived this goal.

McFadyen is a huge dog lover and surprised me in mentioning his own dogs under different names, but with the same nickname "Black Forces of Destruction", two black Labrador Retrievers. I smiled because I remember reading about his two black Labs on his webpage and I clearly remembered this nickname and the reason why they are named like this.

McFadyen feels near, his book doesn't leave you, you should be afraid of what's coming next and you will have problems to find books that reach the same level.

Rating:
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Mass Market Paperback: 624 pages
Publisher: Bantam (July 29, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0553589946
ISBN-13: 978-0553589948

Cody McFadyen - Shadow Man (Smoky Barrett Series, Book 1)

Once, Special Agent Smoky Barrett hunted serial killers for the FBI. She was one of the best–until a madman terrorized her family, killed her husband and daughter, and left her face scarred and her soul brutalized. Turning the tables on the killer, Smoky shot him dead–but her life was shattered forever.

Now Smoky dreams about picking up her weapon again. She dreams about placing the cold steel between her lips and pulling the trigger one last time. Because for a woman who’s lost everything, what is there left to lose?

She’s about to find out.

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Smoky is a shattered FBI Agent. She witnessed her husband and daugthers killing, was tortured and raped. She's literally standing on the brink and there is just one step missing when the death of her beloved highschool friend jerks her back into life and into what her core once was: A fierce dragon, hunting serial killers having a fabulous team on her side and her god-child Bonnie now depending on her.

When it becomes clear the killer is fixated on Smoky to the point of sneaking into her home, bugging her phone and car time is getting precious. He already initiated personal attacks on the rest of her team and threatened future ones against the people she loves - she has left.

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A powerful writing that kept me reading. Smoky's background sounds so convincing that the reader truly wishes the Smoky Barret series would have begun with her past but it didn't take anything away from this thriller. This is Cody McFadyen's first novel and it certainly has it's few downs but mostly it was fast paced and thoughtful.
I kept wondering who might be the killer because he always knew so much about what was going on, who was where etc. . For me it became pretty clear the killer must be an insider with access but in the end it became a bit predictable.

For me it is hard to imagine this being the first novel by Cody McFadyen because the characters are such credible, multidimensional and memorable. I once had the same feeling with the first Kay Scarpetta novels by Cornwell.

There is a new writer on his way to the top if he keeps up what he's done in 'Shadow Man'.

A sequel has already been published with a third thriller on the go, scheduled for publishing at the end of September 2008.

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Rating:
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Mass Market Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Bantam (March 27, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0553589938
ISBN-13: 978-0553589931