Face of a Killer [Kindle Edition]

Sydney Fitzpatric, FBI forensic artist, is having a hard time fitting in at her new assignment, and it doesn't help that she suspects her ex-boyfriend is keeping tabs on her. Throw in a reluctant (at least at first) partner, the normal angst of her relationship with her mother and step father, a precocious 13-year-old sister, and a self-serving, political-insider 'uncle' who is seeking reelection, and the characters alone offer a treasure-trove of tension as a backdrop to a provocative plot.

It is the anniversary of Sid's father's murder, and she visits the man convicted. During this visit, the first seeds of doubt creep into her thoughts as to the man's guilt. So begins a journey where the Pollyanna of the FBI office travels into the gray area between right and wrong with the help of Carillo, her partner and an agent who is much more flexible about the rules. Sid discovers much about her father and his associates and about the man who has languished in jail for 20 years awaiting execution for her father's murder. But most-importantly, she learns a lot about herself in the process.

The story starts out a bit slowly, but once things get moving, watch out. Sydney is a sympathetic and compelling woman, and her quest for the truth is one you hope, until the very end, won't destroy her and her family.

I highly recommend Robin Burcell's 'Face of a Killer.'

Sydney Fitzpatrick, FBI forensic artist, is uniquely qualified to draw the titular "face of a killer." But the face of a very particular killer, the man who murdered her father almost exactly 20 years ago as the book opens, is rather elusive. The man convicted of the crime is just days away from his scheduled execution, still proclaiming his innocence. And for the first time in all the intervening years, Sydney finds herself questioning whether there is even the smallest possibility that he was not guilty of the act that has shaped her life. But soon she finds that perhaps everything she thought she knew about her father's life - and his death - was a lie. As Sydney examines this possibility, she uncovers a plot involving a massive conspiracy reaching the highest reaches of political and corporate life.

Sydney, a cop for eight years, now with the FBI for four years, has recently transferred from Washington, D.C. to the San Francisco office, having dumped her former fiancé, also an FBI agent. Above all things, she is known for following the rules, but that becomes more difficult as she begins the investigation, twenty years after the fact, into her father's death, ostensibly the result of a break-in at the pizza parlor he owned. Her father, ex-army, had been a civilian contractor working for the army after his discharge, till a tragic accident forced his retirement. Sydney, then thirteen years old, had been asleep in another part of the pizza parlor when he was killed.

The author, herself an FBI-trained forensic artist, police officer, detective and hostage negotiator for many years, brings an unquestioned authenticity to this suspenseful tale. I have to reluctantly admit that there were times when the narrative felt padded, going over and over the same ground. But the plot is quite interesting, and the author brings the tale to an exciting conclusion.

[Charmingly, Kate Gillespie, the protagonist featured in four of this author's previous novels, makes a cameo appearance here, introduced as "a San Francisco PD homicide inspector" and one of Sydney's girlfriends.]

Great book and very entertaining. I would definetly read another by this author. It keeps you entertained and guessing whats gonna be next.