Cody McFadyen’s new mystery/thriller The Darker Side was a good quick read that I enjoyed. While a little on the grandiose side (the first known victim is actually number 143), the story managed to avoid all my pet peeve clichés that infest so much of crime fiction.
The book follows agent Smoky Barrett as she and her team hunt a serial killer who punishes people for their sins. The first known victim is the transsexual daughter of a prospective Presidential nominee. But soon they find a second, earlier victim, a former prostitute now on the straight and narrow. Then more victims show up. The problem for the F.B.I. team is that all the victims are reformed. They sin no more. So how does the killer know their sins to make them atone?
While a little overly dramatic, McFadyen wove Smoky Barrett’s personal demons into the story fairly well. She’s a lapsed Catholic for once. Blames god for her mother’s death from cancer decades earlier. Personally, I don’t get drifting away from the church because one is mad at god, but that’s common enough. It seems much more sensible to me to reject that conception of god altogether rather than continue to believe in a callous Catholic god that one spites by avoiding his associated church. Perhaps it just shows a depth of faith that I did not have myself. Smoky Barret has a lot more issues besides that one, including huge mental and physical scars from run-ins with past serial killers. No matter what veneer of normalcy a person assumes, that’s gotta mess you up.
The character I liked most however, was not Smoky Barrett. She’s just a little too competent and smooth on the outside for that. I preferred James Giron, a fellow profiler who works underneath her on her team. He’s good, but irritable and irritating to everyone. He’s still a team player, but that doesn’t mean he likes anyone or anyone likes him. That’s a great combination, and the type of character that is rarely done well. Perhaps if he was more than a small player in this drama, he might not be done as interestingly, but I think he’d be worth a swing at a more prominent role.
One other thing to note: this is the third installment in the Smoky Barrett series, but the first one I read. Sometimes it’s hard to jump in to the middle of a series but not so in this case. I never felt like I was missing important pieces of the character’s back story. Smoky Barrett’s doubts and issues are partially due to the past serial killer run-ins. I assume that this forms the meat of the first two books in the series. I got enough back story that I got the meat of it without having the entire story rehashed in detail.
The all-important question: would I read more McFadyen? Yup. Though I’d definitely pick up library copies or the mass market paperback editions. It even passes the Bechdel test.
A few other blog reviews of The Darker Side:
- The Tome Traveller’s Weblog
- Gravetapping
- Blogging My Way to Harvard
- acornerofmadness at The Daily Pulp
A P.R. representative for The Darker Side requested a review and provided my copy free.
Title: The Darker Side
Author: Cody McFadyen
Series: Smoky Barrett; 3
Imprint / publisher: Bantam Books / Random House
Format: Hardcover
Length: 353 p.
Publication date: September 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0-553-80694-6
Subject: Government investigators — Fiction
Subject: Women detectives — Fiction
Subject: Serial murderers — Fiction
LC classification: PS3613.C438D37 2008
