Thrillers, Crimes - Fiction, Women Detectives - Fiction, Police Stories

Shadow Man

Name: Shadow Man
Author: Cody McFadyen
ISBN: 9780553589931

by Cody McFadyen

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Overview

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.

In all her years at the Bureau, Smoky has never encountered anyone like him–a new and fascinating kind of monster, a twisted genius who defies profilers’ attempts to understand him. And he’s issued Smoky a direct challenge, coaxing her back from the brink with the only thing that could convince her to live.

The killer videotaped his latest crime–an act of horror that left a child motherless–then sent a message addressed to Agent Smoky Barrett. The message is enough to shock Smoky back to work, back to her FBI team. And that child awakens something in Smoky she thought was gone forever.

Suddenly the stakes are raised. The game has changed. For as this deranged monster embarks on an unspeakable spree of perversion and murder, Smoky is coming alive again–and she’s about to face her greatest fears as a cop, a woman, a mother…and a merciless killer’s next victim.

Synopsis

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.In all her years at the Bureau, Smoky has never encountered anyone like him a new and fascinating kind of monster, a twisted genius who defies profilers attempts to understand him. And he s issued Smoky a direct challenge, coaxing her back from the brink with the only thing that could convince her to live.The killer videotaped his latest crime an act of horror that left a child motherless then sent a message addressed to Agent Smoky Barrett...

Patrick Andrson

Many readers who will be put off by the novel's violence might, if they give it a chance, find relief in the sensitivity Mcfadyen gives Barrett. Few men who write serial-killer novels have created a woman of such depth … if you can handle the violence, it will be among the best crime fiction you will read this year.— The Washington Post

About the Author, Cody McFadyen

Cody McFadyen lives with his family in California. Shadow Man is his first novel.

Reviews

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Editorials

Patrick Anderson

Patrick Andrson

Publishers Weekly

McFadyen's debut novel has an intriguing premise-FBI Special Agent Smoky Barrett and her team are targeted by a serial killer who believes he's a descendant of Jack the Ripper-but it poses a few problems for reader McCormick. Barrett begins by describing the "cigar-sized" scars on her face and body, which resulted from an attack by a madman a year before that also took the lives of her husband and child. This unpleasantly precise beginning is a harbinger of the ever-increasing, lavishly described incidents of physical and mental violence that propel the novel, which is much less wince-inducing on the page than it is in your ear. McCormick, an intelligent actress who effectively portrays a sympathetic therapist on TV's Law and Order, elects to deliver this off-putting material in a brusque, almost sardonic manner. If the intent was to undercut the disturbing effect of the prose, it doesn't work. Smoky's best friend and fellow agent, Callie, has a penchant for calling everyone "honey-love," an affectation that even the director of the FBI finds annoying. Thanks to McCormick's exaggerated delivery of the incessantly used phrase, listeners will know exactly how he feels. Simultaneous release with the Bantam hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 17). (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Don't abandon all hope, ye who enter. McFadyen's debut opens with Special Agent Smoky Barrett in a downward spiral after the murder of her husband and young daughter as well as her own torture, rape, and disfigurement at the hands of a serial killer. One of the driving forces behind her return to the FBI is the emergence of a new serial killer, Jack Jr., who claims to be a descendant of Jack the Ripper. Jack relishes taunting his worthy adversary, Smoky, and her elite team to bring to an end his torture, rape, and murder of women who prostitute themselves over the Internet. As women continue to die and Jack's crimes become increasingly personal for Smoky and her team, the race is on to determine Jack's true identity and stop him. Narrated in the first person by Smoky, the mystery builds to a crescendo that leaves the reader with a surprise twist at the finale. Warning: McFadyen doesn't flinch in his graphic descriptions of violence, so this book is definitely not for the squeamish. Recommended for large public library fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/06.]-Susan O. Moritz, National Gallery of Art Lib., Washington, DC Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

"Jack Jr.," a serial killer modeling himself after Jack the Ripper, stalks the Internet for victims. Mean sites on the Internet have become the mean streets of contemporary thrillers, as this debut makes clear. Although plenty of nasty action plays out in San Francsico and L.A., the more compelling parts of McFadyen's pursuit center on the net, where capture and survival become a matter of tracking website sign-on names, IPs (Internet protocol numbers) and user IDs. Faced with taking on a new case, FBI agent Smoky Barrett feels shaky. She's Annie Oakley with a pistol and her early work at the Bureau was stellar. Then she killed a man who had just murdered her husband and daughter, but not before the culprit raped Smoky and scarred her face and body. Smoky realizes she must return to work when high-school friend Annie King is brutally murdered. The agent is shocked to learn that Annie had been the star performer on an Internet sex site. The killer, Smoky discovers, envisions himself as Jack Jr., a latter day Jack the Ripper determined to kill the whores working the net. Scrutinizing a video the killer made of the murder, Smoky and staff discern two killers at work and they wonder if the stalker, like a deadly computer virus, is recruiting other killers from sexually demented surfers salivating over porn websites. Even more disconcerting are Jack Jr.'s e-mails to Smoky and staff. He taunts them by revealing he knows intimate details of their lives and their homes. Emboldened, he suggests he's coming after Smoky. The final race through streets and cyberspace heads to a confrontation that's violent and suspenseful, and a revelation that's rather startling-at least to readers who have neverseen a 1980s Brian De Palma movie. Brisk and fascinating.