Shadow Man - Cody McFadyen - Mel's Bookshelf

Shadow Man – Cody McFadyen

(4 / 5)

Shadow Man was recommended to me by a trusted GoodReads thriller fan friend (Thanks Christine), who gave it an easy 10 (YES 10) stars! How could I resist immediately getting this book and reading it! Although I don’t completely agree with her 10 star assessment, it was still an extremely entertaining, thrilling read!

Smokey Barrett was a top FBI agent hunting serial killers until one night her and her family were terrorised by one. Her husband and daughter were killed, leaving Smokey alone and dealing with a whole lot of grief. When her best friend is killed by someone claiming to be a direct descendent of Jack the Ripper, Smokey is thrust back in to help with the case. This killer is after her too, and will stop at nothing to get her.

I have read a lot of praise for McFadyen’s writing and I have to agree. The whole book was extremely well written. It flowed extremely well and the quality of the writing made up for any shortfalls in the novel.

The characters were all very deep and disturbed. Each had something going on. Smokey herself was obviously damaged. I didn’t think anyone could write a character who had suffered through such tragedy, but McFadyen does a good job of it. Not a fantastic job mind you, but he made Smokey likeable, and not too depressing. The story about what happened to her was the stuff of nightmares and did not skimp on the gory details. The secondary characters were all well established. Except maybe for her secret service friend who I found just to be an added love interest without real substance – hopefully in subsequent novels we will learn more about him. Not that I think there should have been a love interest in it at all really. I get what he was trying to do, but I didn’t find it believable. Her team are a great bunch of characters, and Bonnie also. Really well written. And man.. Confronting!

The action and violent scenes were thrilling. Non stop at times! Definitely a page turner.

So why haven’t I rated this higher? Its because even though it was written so masterfully, I knew who the killer was. The whole way through. I find it utterly disappointing when I pick it up, and I confidently picked it up quickly with this one. And it left a bad taste in my mouth. I felt quite ripped off to be honest.

However fabulous writing redeems. Looking forward to number 2!!