Abandoned – Cody McFadyen
Abandoned (A Thriller) Abandoned is the fourth book in the Smokey Barrett series by Cody McFadyen and in my opinion it may be his best! Smokey is an FBI agent and leader of the LA branch of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). They hunt down the worst men and women who murder men, women and children and serial rapists too. Smokey is also a survivor. She lives with the scars on her face, left after a killer broke into her house and killed her husband Matt and daughter Alexa. The previous books, Shadow Man, The Face of Death, and The Dark Side have all been outstanding. I thoroughly enjoy McFadyen’s writing and the characters that live in these books. These characters include members of Smoky’s team, Callie Thorne, Alan Washington, James Giron, and Leo Carnes, who plays a big role in this book. Smokey’s adopted daughter Bonnie, who is also a survivor, having been tied to her dead mother for three days, and Tommy, Smoky’s new husband, all combine to make the novels extend far beyond the chase of a killer. MaFadyen’s first book, Shadow Man was a particular favorite and one of the best debut novels I have ever read.
first book that I read in this series was Purgatory Ridge. I thought it was one of the best books I ever read and quickly went back and read the first two Iron Lake and Boundary Waters. Since then I have religiously kept up with this series and I think it keeps getting better and better with Heaven’s Keep the latest release as maybe the best! The characters in these books from Cork, to wife Jo, Cork’s kids and Henry Meloux, my favorite characters, are believable and the writing is wonderful. The books, to me, always work on several levels as they explore relationships sometimes personal between Cork and Jo or cultural between Cork’s job and his Ojibwe heritage as well as the crimes that ofttimes form the core of the novels. 
Two of my favorites are Mercy Falls and Copper River where the storyline continues through both novels. To me Krueger is an 11 on as scale of 1 to 10! In praise of Red Knife….
