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The Face of Death [Mass Market Paperback]

Cody McFadyen
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
Price: CDN$ 8.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details
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Book Description

July 29 2008
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.


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From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. McFadyen's outstanding sequel to his debut, Shadow Man (2006), provides a chilling reminder: "However bad things may become, evil men only triumph in the most important ways when we let them." FBI Special Agent Smoky Barrett is barely back in fighting form six months after killing the man who murdered her family and best friend before she must deal with another threat. "The Stranger," a serial killer seeking revenge for a miscarriage of justice, has targeted 16-year-old Sarah Langstrom, who asks for Smoky's help after the Stranger kills Sarah's latest foster family. The Stranger's murder spree actually began on Sarah's sixth birthday with her biological parents and dog. Smoky's crackerjack L.A. Violent Crimes Unit whirls into action to catch a monster who inflicts pain on Sarah by systematically killing anyone she loves. Smoky's fierce first-person narrative and Sarah's eerie diary excerpts, supplemented by a great cast, lift this scary thriller far above the usual serial-killer norm. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Library Binding edition.

From Booklist

McFadyen builds on the strengths of his debut novel, Shadow Man (2006), which introduced the scarred FBI agent Smoky Barrett, who is still recovering from the slaughter of her husband and daughter at the hands of a serial killer. Now she's reached a turning point: she is ready to put away her family's clothes and possessions, to come to terms with the fact that they're gone. But her recovery is interrupted by a new case: a teenage girl who claims that her adopted family was murdered by a man who calls himself "The Stranger." Smoky, who herself has a young adopted daughter (the only survivor from a more recent case), pushes herself to her emotional and physical limits to catch the killer and to protect her new family. McFadyen writes like a veteran, and Smoky proves that she's a strong enough protagonist to support a series. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Library Binding edition.

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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Step aside, Hannibal! Dec 11 2008
By Paul Weiss TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
FBI Special Agent Smoky Barrett is one of those uniquely gifted and probably twisted individuals who have the ability to peer into the turbulent black minds of psychopathic serial killers. On the basis of a minimum of clues, scattered forensic evidence, behaviour patterns and bewilderingly brilliant intuitive foresight, they prepare profiles and stalk the stalkers - the killers that are the very essence of human evil.

A sixteen year old girl, the sole survivor at the blood-drenched scene of a gruesome triple homicide, is holding a gun to her head and seems bent on suicide. She insists she will talk only to Special Agent Barrett and reveals that someone she calls "The Stranger" has killed her entire family and that he has killed everyone she ever loved. No one has ever believed Sarah's tale of the existence of "The Stranger" and even Barrett is finding it a tough story to handle. The evidence slowly but surely mounts and Barrett comes to understand that she is on the trail of a killer who is a living nightmare. But she also realizes that Sarah and The Stranger can also teach her a great deal about her relationships with her own adopted daughter, also traumatized by a close brush with violence!

"The Face of Death" is a long novel and it isn't easy to read. The plot is complex; the procedural trail is twisted and difficult to follow; and the violence is bloody and graphic to a fault. But Cody McFadyen's writing is positively hypnotic. He has personified evil in a fashion that I haven't shivered to since I first read a Hannibal Lecter novel. His descriptions of family love, friendship, loyalty and teamwork are compelling and their juxtaposition with the graphic tales of violence make his story all the more frightening and heart-wrenching. McFadyen has achieved the near impossible feat of writing a blood-soaked thriller that is capable of provoking tears and putting an emotion laden lump into the throat of the most hardened readers.

Five stars for the hypnotic writing and the near impossibility of putting this amazing thriller down. One star off for the rather Byzantine complexity of the plot (which would never have caused me to set the book aside under any circumstances ... his writing is THAT good!). That leaves "The Face of Death" as a highly recommended four star thriller.

Paul Weiss
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com: 4.2 out of 5 stars  66 reviews
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Keeps getting better and scarier Jun 3 2007
By ellen - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Library Binding|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you thought Cody Mcfayden was a fluke with a great first novel, you will be pleased to know the man can write like a seasoned veteran.
He continues with Smoky Barrett, the FBI agent who lived through a horror of her own, with a great deal of scarring - not only on her soul, but on her once gorgeous face. That hasn't stopped her from going after evil.
She is called to a gruesome murder scene - a teenage girl with a gun to her head is yelling she will only speak to Smoky Barrett. Smoky goes into the house and into the nightmare of Sarah. Sarah is a girl whose family was murdered when she was a child - she was spared by the murderer. He (the murderer) has an agenda for her...
Mcfadyen takes us on this murderer's journey - he's called The Stranger - and if you were expecting broad strokes of the action - forget it - the language and actions are so strong, you are squirming - almost needing a shower - but his words are powerful.
The same FBI agents and several other characters we came to care about are back in this book. And they do not fail us either.
The Face of Death is a masterful book. Reminded me of early Jeffrey Deaver - but what comes next from Mcfadyen will be a sight to behold.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars THE Best Serial Killer Thriller in Years! Sep 3 2007
By R. Jepson - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Library Binding
If you're tired of same old serial killer,psychological thriller stuff,read this,you won't be able to put it down. I agree the great reviews I've just read here,and even emailed the author,and,o boy o boy,more of the "Smoky" series are to come.Just loved these two books,now what do I read?? Whatever it is,it won't be as good.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars This is fiction that can send the mentally sound into therapy and psychotropic drugs. July 23 2011
By Lisa Kelly Wilson - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Mass Market Paperback
If you like your mystery/thriller/serial killer books to be brutal, violent, unforgiving, and soul-shattering to the nth degree, then it's possible you'll be able to finish The Face of Death without looking for a razor blade or willingly choosing to spend the rest of your days in an alcohol-fueled haze. To say that Cody McFadyen pulls no punches in this novel is akin to suggesting that sometimes the sun rises, and he does this not by showing us the killer but by letting us meet and get to know Sarah, a young girl whose life has been touched--over and over again--by this killer, beginning on her 6th birthday. It's what Sarah sees and experiences and feels that keeps you hooked, that breaks your heart, and that fills you with dread over what will happen when you turn the page: you fear that it's going to get worse, but you hope it doesn't. And even when it does, you keep turning the damned pages anyway.

I've read all of McFadyen's Smoky Barrett books, but saying I "enjoyed" them wouldn't express how horrified and heartbroken his characters have made me feel. I thought no story could possibly be more horrifying than Smoky's original story (Shadow Man), but of the characters I've met in his four novels, it's Sarah's that moved me down to the molecules that make up my being. McFadyen has some serious writing chops, folks.

Having said that, there is, of course, room for improvement. Sometimes the language used by the characters is unrealistically formal (who says "What has occurred..." instead of, say, "What's going on with..."?), and like others, I find Callie's use of "honey-love" (why the damned hyphen, anyway?) tiresome.

Even so, I have to give this particular entry in the Smoky Barrett series five stars. It's NOT for everyone (as I said, brutal, soul shattering, etc.), but it is in a league all its own.
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