Shadow Man (Smoky Barrett Book 1)

"Few men who write serial-killer novels have created a woman of such depth [as heroine Smoky Barrett]…. a powerful mixture of strength and vulnerability, courage and fear. In a strange way, Barrett's mingled roles as woman, victim and avenger make the novel as humane as it is violent….. If you can handle the violence, it will be among the best crime fiction you will read this year."— Washington Post "Terrifically good, terrifically scary.... McFadyen seems to have done ample research on the mind-set of serial killers to give his characters more believability.... This one’s very hard to put down."— San Francisco Chronicle Books "A thriller that mixes Michael Connelly-style procedural details with gore that’s Thomas Harris ornate."— Entertainment Weekly "Disturbing ... a promising debut for McFadyen, who combines many conventions of hte genre by with far more exquisite, intricate results than the norm.... Pack[s] a visceral punch."— Publishers Weekly "Coldly, stunningly brilliant. Move over Thomas Harris, Mcfadyen has brought a new game to town."—Lisa Gardner‘ Shadow Man is one of the most powerful and authentic portrayals of a serial killer and the people who hunt them I have ever read. It kept me riveted right to the last page. Cody Mcfadyen is the real thing."— John E. Douglas, author Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit "First-time novelist McFadyen writes like an old pro ... A series to watch."— Booklist From the Hardcover edition. From AudioFile A killer who believes he is a descendant of Jack the Ripper is terrorizing Los Angeles by killing "cyber-whores" he finds on the Internet. The only person smart enough to stop him is FBI Agent Smoky Barrett, a woman who was badly scarred by another serial killer. Carolyn McCormick's delivery is rich, though occasionally clinical. When she gives in to the emotion of a scene, she's strong, but she does not always do so. Still, the performance is good, and the writing powerful. Smoky Barrett's back story is so convincing I looked for previous novels featuring her. But this is Mcfadyen's first novel and the character's first appearance. Prequel anyone? M.S. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. 'Terrifically good, terrifically scary ... very hard to put down' -- San Francisco Chronicle 20060702 'SHADOW MAN grabs you by the throat and yanks you along for a hell of a scary ride. A spellbinding read from first page to last.' -- Faye Kellerman 20060702 'Coldly, stunningly brilliant. Move over Thomas Harris, Mcfadyen has brought a new game to town.' -- Lisa Gardner 20060702 'SHADOW MAN is one of the most powerful and authentic portrayals of a serial killer and the people who hunt them I have ever read. It kept me riveted right to the last page. Cody Mcfadyen is the real thing.' -- John Douglas, author of the #1 bestseller MINDHUNTER: Inside the F.B.I.'s Serial Crime Unit 20060702 'The wildest night ride I have been on for quite a while...By the time you finish reading this book you'll be running on adrenalin you never knew you had. If you're sick of books about serial killers, SHADOW MAN is the cure. Mcfadyen's writing and characterization run long, deep and true. And, by the way, he is beyond scary. Not to be missed' -- Bookreporter.com 20060620 'Authentic...handled well with some unexpected twists and turns. Mcfadyen has drawn Barrett and her fellow FBI members tenderly and intricately' -- Shots Magazine 20060620 'As humane as it is violent...Barrett's anger, pain and determination infuse the novel with a raw passion...it will be among the best crime fiction you will read this year' -- Washington Post 20060703 'Disturbing ... a promising debut for Mcfadyen, who combines many conventions of the genre but with far more exquisite, intricate results than the norm ... Pack[s] a visceral punch' -- Publishers Weekly 20060601 'A truly talented author' -- The Sunday Times, Australia 20060601 'I'm still reeling after reading this high-octane, heart-pumping FBI thriller...Brilliant. But not for the squeamish' -- ****Good Reading, Australia 20060601 'This is one of the best serial killer novels that I've read. It's up there with the early Patricia Cornwell novels, Primal Fear and The Silence of the Lambs -- a stunning first novel' -- Manly Daily 20060601 'Mcfadyen has managed to deliver something fresh. His style of narration sucks the reader in from the first sentence and the story has enough plot twists to keep you intrigued to the last page. A superb debut novel, hopefully a sign of things to come from a truly talented author. In a word: chilling' -- Herald Sun, Australia 20060601 'If you like to be scared so witless you hold your breath for pages at a time, SHADOW MAN won't disappoint' -- New Idea, Australia 20060530 --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Publishers Weekly This disturbing serial killer drama set in California marks a promising debut for McFadyen, who combines many conventions of the genre but with far more exquisite, intricate results than the norm. FBI agent Smoky Barrett, a haunted, complicated woman, leads a team of investigators assigned to a serial killer task force. Barrett, who escaped the clutches of a different serial killer a year earlier but lost her husband and daughter in the attack, is now tracking a madman known as "Jack Jr.," who believes he's a descendant of Jack the Ripper. He mauls women, mostly prostitutes with Web sites, then sends the videotapes of the killings to Barrett and her crew. The plot follows a typical arc, complete with some nauseating details and predictable twists. There's also a romance between Barrett and a bodyguard that seems tacked on for future installments. Yet McFadyen's writing is crisp and smart, and his scenes pack a visceral punch without being cheap or exploitative. Barrett, for her part, is a memorable protagonist, a deeply troubled woman trying to move on from tragedy, yet possessing special insight into the criminal mind. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Cody Mcfadyen lives with his family in California. Shadow Man is his first novel. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. I HAVE ONE of the dreams. There are only three; two are beautiful, one is violent, but all of them leave me shivering and alone.The one I have tonight is about my husband. It goes something like this:I could say he kissed my neck, and leave it like that, simplicity. But that would be a lie, in the most basic way that the word was created to mean.It would be more truthful to say that I yearned for him to kiss my neck, with every molecule of my being, with every last, burning inch of me, and that when he did, his lips were the lips of an angel, sent from heaven to answer my fevered prayers.I was seventeen then, and so was he. It was a time when there was no blandness or darkness. There was only passion, sharp edges, and a light that burned so hard it hurt the soul. He leaned forward in the darkness of the movie theater and (Oh God) he hesitated for just a moment and (Oh God) I quivered on a precipice but pretended to be calm, and Oh God Oh God Oh God he kissed my neck, and it was heaven, and I knew right then and there that I would be with him forever.He was my one. Most people, I know, never find their one. They read about it, dream about it, or scoff at the idea. But I found mine, I found him when I was seventeen, and I never let him go, not even the day he lay dying in my arms, not even when death ripped him from me as I screamed, not even now.God's name these days means suffering: Oh God Oh God Oh God—I miss him so.I wake with the ghost of that kiss on my flushed seventeen-year-old skin, and realize that I am not seventeen, and that he has stopped aging at all. Death has preserved him at the age of thirty-five, forever. To me, he is always seventeen years old, always leaning forward, always brushing my neck in that perfect moment.I reach over to the spot he should be sleeping in, and I am pierced with a pain so sudden and blinding that I pray as I shiver, pray for death and an end to pain. But of course, I go on breathing, and soon, the pain lessens.I miss everything about him being in my life. Not just the good things. I miss his flaws as achingly as I miss the beautiful parts of him. I miss his impatience, his anger. I miss the patronizing look he would give me sometimes when I was mad at him. I miss being annoyed by the fact he'd always forget to fill the gas tank, leaving it near empty when I was ready to go somewhere.This is the thing, I think often, that never occurs to you when you consider what it would be like to lose someone you love. That you would miss not just the flowers and kisses, but the totality of the experience. You miss the failures and little evils with as much desperation as you miss being held in the middle of the night. I wish he were here now, and I was kissing him. I wish he were here now, and I was betraying him. Either would be fine, so fine, as long as he was here. People ask sometimes, when they get up the courage, what it's like to lose someone you love. I tell them it's hard, and leave it at that.I could tell them that it's a crucifixion of the heart. I could say that most days after, I screamed without stopping, even as I moved through the city, even with my mouth closed, even though I didn't make a sound. I could tell them I have this dream, every night, and lose him again, every morning.But, hey, why ruin their day? So I tell them it's hard. That usually seems to satisfy them. This is just one of the dreams, and it gets me out of bed, shaking.I stare at the empty room, and then turn to the mirror. I have learned to hate mirrors. Some would say that this is normal. That all of us do this, put ourselves under the microscope of self-reflection and focus on the flaws. Beautiful women create fret and worry lines by looking for those very things. Teenage girls with beautiful eyes and figures to die for weep because their hair is the wrong color, or they think their nose is too big. The price of judging ourselves through others' eyes, one of the curses of the human race. And I agree.But most people don't see what I see when I look into the mirror. When I look at myself, what I see is this:I have a jagged scar, approximately one half inch wide, that begins in the middle of my forehead at my hairline. It shoots straight down, then turns at a near perfect ninety degree angle to the left. I have no left eyebrow; the scar has taken its place. It crosses my temple, where it then makes a lazy loop-de-loop down my cheek. It rips over toward my nose, crosses the bridge of it just barely, and then turns back, slicing in a diagonal across my left nostril and zooming one final time past my jawline, down my neck, ending at my collarbone.It's quite an effect. If you look at me in right profile only, everything looks normal. You have to stare at me straight on to get the full picture.Everyone looks in a mirror at least once a day, or sees their reflection in the eyes of others. And they know what to expect. They know what they will see, what will be seen. I no longer see what I expect to see. I have the reflection of a stranger, staring out of a mask I can't take off. When I stand naked in front of the mirror, as I am now, I can see the rest of it. I have what can only be called a necklace of cigar-sized circular scars, going from under one side of my collarbone to the next. More of the same traverse my breasts, go down across my sternum and stomach, ending just above my pubic hair.The scars are cigar-sized because a cigar is what made them.If you can put all of that aside, things look pretty good. I'm small, four foot ten inches tall. I'm not skinny, but I am in shape. My husband used to call it a "lush" figure. After my mind, heart, and soul, he used to say, he married me for my "mouth-sized boobs and my heart-shaped ass." I have long, thick, dark, curly hair that hangs down to just above said ass.He used to love that too.It is hard for me to look past those scars. I've seen them a hundred times, maybe a thousand. They are still all I see when I look into the mirror.They were put there by the man who killed my husband and my daughter. Who was later killed by me.I feel a broad emptiness rush into me thinking about this. It's huge, dark, and absolutely nerveless. Like sinking into numb Jell-o.No big deal. I'm used to it.That's just how my life is now.I sleep for no more than ten minutes, and I know that I won't be sleeping again tonight. I remember waking up a few months ago in the middle hours, just like this. That time between 3:30 and 6:00 a.m., when you feel like the only person on earth if you happen to be up then. I'd had one of the dreams, as always, and knew I wasn't going to be getting back to sleep.I pulled on a T-shirt and some sweatpants, slipped on my battered sneakers, and headed out the door. I ran and ran and ran in the night, ran till my body was slick with sweat, till it soaked my clothes and filled those sneakers, and then I ran some more. I wasn't pacing myself, and my breath was coming out fast. My lungs felt scarred by the coolness of that early-morning air. I didn't stop, though. I ran faster, legs and elbows pumping, running as fast as I could, reckless.I ended up in front of one of those convenience stores that fill the Valley, over by the curb, gagging and hacking up stomach acid. A couple of other early-morning ghosts looked over at me, then looked away. I stood up, wiped my mouth, and slammed through the front door of the store."I want a pack of cigarettes," I said to the proprietor, still gulping in air.He was an older man, in his fifties, who looked Indian to me."What kind do you want?"The question startled me. I hadn't smoked in years. I looked at the rows behind him, my eyes catching the once-beloved Marlboros."Marlboros. Reds."He got me the pack and rang it up. Which is when I realized I was in sweats and had no money. Instead of being embarrassed, I was, of course, angry."I forgot my purse." I said it with my chin jutted out, defiant. Daring him to not give me the cigarettes or to make me feel ridiculous in any way.He looked at me for a moment. It was, I guess, what writers would call a "pregnant pause." He relaxed."You've been running?" he asked."Yeah—running from my dead husband. Better than killing yourself, I guess, ha ha!"The words came out sounding funny to my ears. A little loud, a little strangled. I suppose I was a little crazy. But instead of getting the flinch or look of discomfort I so wanted from him at that moment, his eyes went soft. Not with pity, but with understanding. He nodded. He reached across the counter, holding the pack of cigarettes out for me to take."My wife die in India. One week before we were supposed to come to America. You take the cigarettes, pay me next time."I stood there for a moment, staring at him. And then I snatched those cigarettes and ran out of there as fast as I could, before the tears started rolling down my cheeks. I clutched that pack of cigarettes and ran home weeping.The place is a little out of my way, but I never go anywhere else now when I want to smoke.I sit up now and smile a little as I find the pack of cigarettes on the nightstand, and think of the guy at the store as I light up. I guess a part of me loves that little man, in the way you can only love a stranger who shows you a kindness so perfect at a time when you need it the most. It's a deep love, a pang in the heart, and I know that even if I never know his name, I'll remember him till the day I die.I inhale, a nice deep lungful, and regard the cigarette, its perfect cherry tip as it glows in the dark of my bedroom. This, I think, is the insidiousness of the cursed things. Not the nicotine addiction, though that's surely bad enough. But the way a cigarette just fits in certain places. Morning dawns with a steaming cup of coff... --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Booklist A serial killer murdered FBI agent Smokey Barrett's husband and daughter. Smokey killed the fiend but was left deeply scarred. Now, after spending time contemplating suicide, Smokey finds herself drawn back into the game . . . by a new killer who has addressed his latest crime to her personally. First-time novelist McFadyen writes like an old pro, acknowledging the conventions of the serial-killer thriller without being slavishly devoted to them. Smokey, the not-quite-five-foot-tall, sharp-shooting FBI agent, is no standard-issue heroine, and her nemesis, the killer who calls himself Jack Jr., is both chilling and strangely compassionate. A series to watch. David Pitt Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Read more