Man, I Sure Hope the FBI Isn't This Incompetent!
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Author: Cody McFayden
Title: Shadow Man Genre: thriller Smoky Barrett has been to hell. The scars left on the FBI agent's face and body by a serial killer who got inside her defensive perimeter are puny compared to the scars he left on her soul by forcing her to watch the deaths of her husband and child. Six months of intensive therapy finds Smoky barely clinging to the raw edge of sanity: it's time to either go back to work or finish the job that Joseph Sands had started on her. But before Smoky can make that decision on her own, Jack, Jr., makes it for her. A note was left at a brutal slaying up the coast in San Francisco, a note that serves two purposes. First, it introduces a new serial killer, a man who brags that he is a direct patrilineal descendant of Jack the Ripper, a man who carries on the Ripper's sacred tradition of cleansing society of prostitutes. In this case, he chooses his victims from among internet porn providers. Second, it places Smoky Barrett and her team on notice that he has chosen her as his adversary. To drive that second point home, his first victim is Smoky's oldest friend. Smoky recovers immediately so she can rejoin her team of psycho hunters: they comprise four crack agents, augmented for this case by a top-flight Bureau computer nerd. There seems to be little to go on in the case, for so far the killer has left only what evidence he wants left behind - that and the taunting emails from him that arrive at irregular intervals. Only one thing is certain: Smoky's friend Annie will not be his last victim, not unless this psycho is taken out of circulation, and permanently. Jack, Jr., as he styles himself, has plenty of surprises in store for the team. One by one, he visits upon each a brutal surprise, cunningly-designed attack meant to demoralize the agents as individuals and as a team. Their most personal secrets are violated, their innermost fears exploited, their greatest strengths neutralized as Jack ambushes them in rapid-fire order. Even as all five agents feel their sanity slipping away, they know they have no choice but to press forward... but how? And where? Ever watched a whiz-bang techno-thriller movie and come away realizing that there wasn't a plot - just special effects? That's exactly how I felt after finishing Cody Mcfadyen's debut novel, The Shadow Man. Mcfadyen dumps every "special effect" in serial killer lore into this book and stirs mightily for effect. You'll find the taunting communications, brutal slayings, torture, rape, personal attacks: you name it, it's in there. The "spawn of Jack" concept isn't new. The videotaping of murders isn't new. The torture, rape, and murder - even some of the more gory and depraved acts of Jack and company aren't new - if he's being compared to Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter character, it's for good reason. There is simply nothing new an unusual about Mcfadyen's villain. Mind you, reading this book will require a strong stomach, for Mcfadyen's descriptions of violence are way over the top. Nope, nothing new and exciting there. So when you were watching that special effects-laden movie, did you notice that the characters were a little thin? You did, eh? Well, then you're prepared for The Shadow Man on that account, too. Mcfadyen's characters are all one dimensional, as though each had been created as a tool for a specific task. He's the hammer, she's the wrench, that one's the pliers, and so forth - and they're also derivative of existing characters: Jeffery Deaver's Amelia Sachs, James Patterson's Alex Cross, etc. Nope, nothing new and exciting there, either Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of The Shadow Man, however, is that not only is the plot insulting to the reader, it's insulting to the FBI. Let me explain what I mean: Ever sat on a jury and just itched to ask a certain question, one that you knew would solve the case? I have. As I read this book, I had precisely the same reaction to Mcfadyen's plot. There is one abso-friggin-lutely huge question that these four, no five, grade A top-notch best-of-the-best FBI agents are simply too stupid to ask - and finding the answer to that question that would provide the identity of "Jack, Jr." in two shakes of a silent lamb's tail. I knew enough to ask that question. A rookie FBI agent would know enough to ask that question - heck, an Explorer Scout on a ride-along with mall security would know enough to ask that question. Of course had any of Smoky's team asked that question, the book would have only been 180 pages long. Duh - no wonder it never got asked. Apparently Mcfadyen expended most of his writing efforts on keeping the readers breathless and none of it on making his tale believable. And to be sure, he's penned a book that hurtles forward at breakneck speed, spraying blood and other bodily fluids from almost every page. The Shadow Man is nothing if not dramatic - but is drama all that's necessary to make a book good? I think not. In closing: inveterate mystery readers - and I am one - like to play a little game with every mystery they read, and it's pretty simple. How early in the book can you suss out the villain? I give Mcfadyen a grade of F on that account: I figured out who the bad guy was less than 25% of the way through the book; and that's not good. Also, points off for a visit from the Coincidence Fairy: the odds that Smoky's all-time best friend ever would have her very own internet porn site seem quite small to me... Overall rating? I'll grudgingly round it up to "Below Average." And another note: I wonder if the Carlos Beltran who created the cover illustration is the baseball player?. all content copyright © 2014 by scmrak
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