Book Review: The Face of Death by Cody McFadyen

Cody McFadyen is a genius wielding a pen as his mighty sword. To say this book was good would be a blatant understatement, simply because if was fantastic.

McFadyen gives you everything you want and more out of a Mystery/Thriller; excitement, suspense, nail biting intrigue and the heart pounding hint of terror of what’s going to happen next? If you haven’t heard of this author, I urge you to go swiftly to your book store or Amazon and purchase the first book in the series, Shadow Man. Let me try to give you a taste, but not too much to spoil your appetite.

Our heroine is FBI agent Smokey Barrett, she has been through hell and back tracking serial killers. She and her team are called in on the really bad cases, they are the best, and have a success rate for solves that keep them that way.

This case is different, she has been asked for personally by the lone survivor in the family’s home, her name is Sara. What Smokey finds when she arrives is gruesome, both parents sliced ear to ear and neck to abdomen, eviscerated; the teenage son throat cut as well.

Sara sits with a gun to her head and blood on her nightgown…just staring…waiting…

5 STARS

Here’s the blurb from the back cover:
In Shadow Man, Cody McFadyen took the suspense thriller where other writers have feared to tread. He introduced readers to a heroine every bit as dark and edgy as the serial killers she hunts: Special Agent Smoky Barrett. Now, in his latest novel, McFadyen brings Agent Barrett back to track down a killer who breaks all the rules. Get ready for a shattering confrontation with the very essence of human evil.

“I want to talk to Smoky Barrett or I’ll 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 crimes 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 to 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.


Find this book at AMAZON.COM