Cody McFadyen and The Darker Side

About the Book:

A lie, a long-ago affair, a dark desire- everyone has secrets they take to the grave. No one knew that better than FBI Special Agent Smoky Barrett. But what secret was a very private young woman keeping that led her to her very public murder? And what kind of killer was so driven and so brazenly daring that he'd take her life on a commercial airliner thirty thousand feed in middair, a killer so accomplished that he'd leave only a small souvenir behind?

These are the questions that bring Smoky and her handpicked team of experienced manhunters from L.A. to the autumn chill of Washington, D.C., by order of the FBI director himself - and at the special request of a high-powered grieving D.C. mother.

As a mother, Smoky knows the pain of losing a child - it nearly killed her once before. As a cop with her own twisted past, she takes every murder personally, which is both her greatest strength and her only weakness. Brilliant, merciless, righteous, the killer Smoky is hunting this time is on his own personal mission, whose cost in innocent human lives he's only begun to collect. For in his eyes no one is innocent; everyone harbors a secret sin, including Smoky Barrett.

Soon Smoky will have to confront a flawless killer who knows her flaws with murderous intimacy.

About the Author:

Cody McFadyen openly declares his passion for words and credits his parents not just for opening that world to him but for teaching him how to dream. “I was raised by two idealists, children of the sixties who urged me to read Walden Pond and Lord of the Rings, and who explained Dylan songs to me when I was seven or eight years old.” One of the first gifts his mother gave him was a library card. He was six and he hasn’t stopped devouring books since.

Another gift was travel. The family spent most of their vacations in their car, exploring places as diverse as Louisville, Kentucky, where his mother grew up, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Wyoming, San Francisco and the Pacific Northwest. Along the way McFadyen shared the back seat with friends James Michener, Steven King, James Clavell, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and many, many others.

A childhood spent creating his own world through reading, listening to music and fantasizing with other kids likely sowed the seeds of his writing career. However, it was his parent’s idealism that gave him the lessons in living that stand him in good stead. Among them, the importance of doing something that matters and that helps other people. Also, quite simply, that people should reach for their dreams. “They never told me what the dream should be,” says McFadyen, “just that I was allowed to pursue it.”

It was awhile before McFadyen went after his own dream. After leaving school he went to work with a volunteer self-help group. He helped people get off of drugs and learn to study, did construction work and accounting and, continuing the McFadyen tradition, travelled extensively.

Ten years later, he changed direction, beginning his own “me decade,” adopting materialism and self-indulgence as his new mantra. Despite the chaos in his life at the time, he married and received the gift of a seven-year-old stepdaughter along with the responsibility of raising her. The experience changed him and, he says, “I came back to myself in the end.” He began to write.
He sold his first novel, Shadow Man, in 2005. It was followed by The Face of Death, published in 2007, and now The Darker Side.

Each of his three novels has been well reviewed, and his protagonist Smoky Barrett has been applauded by reviewers and readers alike. An FBI Special Agent, she is one of the agency’s best profilers and heads a handpicked team of law enforcement specialists. They’re relentless and they hunt killers.

Born in Fort Worth, Cody McFadyen has lived in Austin and Irving, Texas, and Kingston, New York. He now lives in southern California with his family and two remarkable black labs, often referred to as “The Black Forces of Destruction.”


THE DARKER SIDE VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR '08 will officially begin on October 1 and end on October 30. You can visit Cody's blog stops on a daily basis at www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com in October.

As a special promotion for all our authors, Pump Up Your Book Promotion is giving away a FREE virtual book tour to a published author or a $50 Amazon gift certificate to those not published who comments on our authors' blog stops. More prizes will be announced as they become available. The winner(s) will be announced on our main blog at www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.wordpress.com on October 30!