At his urging, she goes to the FBI building to see her CASMIRC team. Their welcome leads her to realize she is not alone – this is her family.

A vicious murder has been committed in San Francisco. The victim, Annie King, had been a close friend of Smoky’s since their school days; Smoky is her daughter Bonnie’s godmother. A letter addressed to Smoky was found near the body. In it, the perpetrator claims to be continuing the tradition of his famous ancestor Jack the Ripper. He calls himself Jack Jr. He says that he is targeting women who have appeared on sexually explicit websites in the same manner Jack the Ripper chose prostitutes as his victims. Jack Jr. says he will be sending Smoky a package.

Bonnie was bound to her mother’s body for three days before discovery. She is now traumatized, unable to speak. Annie named Smoky as Bonnie’s guardian. As a close friend of the victim, Smoky would not ordinarily be allowed to work on the investigation, but the murderer’s contact with her gets her assigned to the case.

Jack sends a video of Annie’s murder. Smoky and her team pick up on a subtle clue in the video. It appears that the murder was committed by not one individual but by two – a murder team. Smoky feels certain that this is not an isolated incident, that Jack Jr. and his cohort are a serial murder team.

Jack seems to have uncommon insight into the details of the lives of Smoky and others on the CASMIRC team. None of them is immune from Jack’s savagery. More murders are committed, and there are more messages both written and video. Jack enjoys taunting them about their inability to identify him with so few clues left at the crime scene. The stress on Smoky and the others is taking its toll.

Two subplots – one gradually revealing the horrific details of the home invasion that so devastated Smoky and her family members, the other about the search for Jack Jr. – are deftly interwoven in Shadow Man. With Smoky as first-person narrator, the reader is privy to her dreams and thoughts.

When a book is written in first person by a purported female narrator but is in actuality written by a man, there can be a disconnect between the intent and the perception. Such is the case in Shadow Man. Smoky lacks some feminine attributes including her acceptance of her facial scarring without too much angst. (Women fear facial disfigurement more than any other injury; men fear genital mutilation.) Smoky almost never thinks about what clothes or shoes she’s going to wear. Yes, it seems petty, but except for those wearing uniforms and nun’s habits, women think about what they’re going to wear. Men, on the other hand, are known for often grabbing the first thing that comes to hand. Smoky sometimes doesn’t come across as a convincing woman.

Shadow Man is not a book for the squeamish. The details of the various crimes are explicit. Jack Jr. isn’t content merely to kill. He tortures, he rapes, he slices, he eviscerates, he leaves internal organs in plastic bags next to the body. It can make for uncomfortable reading.

A minor romance subplot provides hints that Smoky will be back for more. A sequel to Shadow Man will be published in May.

--Lesley Dunlap