Thrillers, Women Detectives - Fiction, Police Stories

The Darker Side

Name: The Darker Side
Author: Cody McFadyen
ISBN: 9780553806946

by McFadyen, Cody

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Overview

"Cody MacFadyen has shocked even the most jaded suspense fans with Shadow Man and The Face of Death. Now comes a thriller that outdoes them all, featuring a psychopath on a perverse crusade of murder. And the one woman who can stop him may have to cross the line to do it." "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 private 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 feet 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 at the special request of a high-powered 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 beginning to collect. For in his eyes no one 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.

About the Author, Cody McFadyen

Cody McFadyen is also the author of Shadow Man and The Face of Death. He lives in California, where he is at work on the fourth Smoky Barrett novel.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Full of horrific violence, this solid third thriller to feature scarred FBI agent Smoky Barrett (after The Face of Death) shows that McFadyen knows how to shock. When the FBI director calls Smoky to Washington, D.C., to inspect the body of a beautiful young woman stabbed to death aboard an airplane, Smoky can't figure out why she's been assigned a case so far outside her L.A. jurisdiction. But when Smoky learns that not only was the victim, Lisa Reid, the child of a powerful Democratic senator but also that "she" was a pre-op transsexual, Smoky realizes that this is more than a bizarre homicide. Smoky and her team soon get on the trail of the man they dub "the Preacher," a sin collector who murders people to obtain their darkest secrets. Harboring secrets of her own, Smoky must stay one step ahead of the killer if she's to bring him down. The forays into the victims' minds to expose their "secrets" are unnecessary, but the formidable Smoky makes up for the occasional plot tangent. (Oct.)

Library Journal

After a prominent senator's daughter is found dead on a plane, FBI special agent Smoky Barrett and her team are called in to investigate. Soon, they discover this is the work of an overzealous vigilante serial killer who calls himself the Preacher-he collects confessions and then kills the confessors. He kills those he feels are not truly repentant or who have not fully confessed their sins. Smoky is a clever heroine, literally and figuratively scarred from a run-in with a killer from an earlier case. She juggles healing herself from her painful past and finding those who are hurting others in this follow-up to Shadow Man and The Face of Death. While McFadyen can periodically get bogged down in Smoky's emotions, he does a good job of juxtaposing her home and work lives. This gritty novel is a fun and fast read for thriller fans; recommended for public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ6/1/08.]
—Elizabeth Cornelius

Kirkus Reviews

Agent Smoky Barrett (The Face of Death, 2007, etc.) pulls out all professional and emotional stops to nail a secretive serial killer who goes public with the in-flight stabbing of a transsexual. Barrett, the scarred but spunky survivor of rape by the murderer of her husband and daughter, jets east from her L.A. office in response to brusque orders from the top, leaving her adopted and equally brutalized, possibly even spunkier daughter in the care of a loving home-school teacher. Her presence has been specifically requested by the grieving mother of the late Lisa/Dexter Reid, assaulted by an unknown assailant in the seat next to her/him on the plane from Texas to Virginia. Rosario Reid wants Smoky to be in charge of the murder investigation; she's confident that someone who has also lost a child will be persistent and thorough without destroying the political viability of Congressman Dillon Reid, frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, who would rather the media not wallow in his child's sensitive past or lurid end. Summoning her wisecracking but brilliant colleagues to join the hunt, Smoky learns from the medical examiner that Lisa/Dexter met her/his maker in a window seat and that the killer stuffed a wee crucifix in the fatal stab wound before disappearing. Further investigation shows that the in-flight murder was just the tip of the iceberg; there have been scores of earlier crucifix-stuffed victims, perhaps as many as 150. The search for their killer takes Smoky to a kindly priest. It turns out that all the victims had Awful Secrets. And Smoky herself has an Awful Secret. Many sordid tales later, the crack team narrows in on the very Catholic murderer. Or murderers.Lots of gasping, but no real thrills. Agent: Havis Dawson, Liza Dawson/Liza Dawson Associates