Meme: Authors New to Me

I was “tagged” and invited to play a little game by J. Kingston Pierce from The Rap Sheet—a pretty damn good blog that you should check out if you haven’t. The game? List the writers I was introduced to in 2008.

The rules are pretty simple: 1) The writer must be new to me, regardless of publication date; 2) bold the titles that were debut novels in 2008; 3) Tag some other people.

Here they are…in the order read.

Haggai Carmon – Triple Identity [Review]
David Gunn – Death’s Head
Gwen Freeman – Crazy Fool Kills Five [Review]
Sarah Pinborough – Breeding Ground [Review]
Bill Crider – Red, White, and Blue Murder [Review]
Dan Ronco – Unholy Domain [Review]
Robert Fate – Baby Shark’s High Plains Redemption [Review]
Michael Norman – The Commission [Review]
Cody McFadyen – The Darker Side [Review]
I. Micheal Koontz – A Matter of Revenge (I just started this one.)

Now that I look at it, it’s an embarrassingly short list. Although there are a few gems; namely Red, White, and Blue Murder, Breeding Ground, The Commission, and Baby Shark’s High Plains Redemption. But none of the books were duds, and I would happily pick up another title from any of these writers.

You probably noticed I broke the second rule; I bolded the title if it was a debut novel even if it wasn’t published in 2008. Opps.

THE DARKER SIDE by Cody McFadyen

The Darker Side is different than the usual novel I read. It is a serial killer-novel—a genre that I jump into only occasionally—that focuses heavily on atmosphere and a dark philosophical interrogation of humanity and its vices.

Smoky Barrett is an FBI manhunter who has a very personal experience with death. Her family was killed as she helplessly watched. The experience scarred her, both physically and emotionally. This closeness with death, murder and loss is the reason Smoky is chosen to investigate the murder of a transsexual. The victim is the child of a powerful senator; a senator who comes from a socially conservative state and could lose everything if the investigation turns out wrong.

The victim was murdered on a commercial airliner. No one witnessed it, or even knew it happened until a flight attendant tried to wake her after the jetliner landed. It doesn’t take long for Smoky to realize it is the work of a serial-killer, and she and her team try to walk the tightrope between political pressure, real-world agonies, and the job at hand.

I have mixed feelings about The Darker Side. The atmosphere is rich and dark—it (the atmosphere) reminded me of the Chris Carter television series “Millennium”—but the crime seemed forced and, at times, unbelievable. It, at times, felt like a locked-door mystery for the “CSI” generation.

The protagonist and narrator—Smoky Barrett—made for a likable character and the narrative was smoothly cool in a soft dream-like style:

“There are trees everywhere, young and old. Their sheer volume tells me they are cherished by this city, and I can see why. Fall is an actual season in Alexandria, Virginia. The leaves are on the turn and, well—it’s pretty spectacular.”

The description, at times, is overwhelming. The author uses multiple pages to introduce Smoky’s team, and there is a scene towards the beginning of the novel where a major players reveals he is gay that is overly traumatic and downright unbelievable. But as the story unraveled I found that the excesses bothered me less and less, and that I liked Smoky Barrett more and more.

The Darker Side's true power is its ideas—guilt, sin, absolution and redemption. And in the end it is the ideas, the atmosphere, and the protagonist that carry the novel to its conclusion.