The FBI Killer

This was a great true crime book, these books usually are. Mark Putnam was an upper crust athelete from New England, Susan Smith was a poor Appalacian girl. Through twists of fate, their paths crossed, and Susan's dead body was thrown off the side of a road up in the mountains. Mark Putnam graduated from the FBI academy and was stationed in the West Virginia/ Kentucky region for his first assignment. He met and used Susan Smith as an informant to nab a serial bank robber known as 'Cat Eyes'. They had an affair behind their spouse's backs. Everything went well until Susan got pregnant and Mark got reassigned to Miami. Well poor Susan was a loose end that demanded child support, so Mark came back from Miami to 'take care of things'. For killing his lover and his unborn child he got 16 years. In Kentucky, it is not murder to kill an unborn child. Nonetheless, Mark got off easy and the 'system' protected him. Aphrodite Jones was a very fluid writing style and made this book and enjoyable 2 day read.

Often in true crime, we find that the victim (and even sometimes the suspect) is made out to a sympathetic soul who others are shocked wound up in a homicide situation. Not in the case in this extremely well written book by Aphrodite Jones about FBI Agent Mark Putnam who killed his pregnant mistress, Susan Smith, when she began pressuring him to support his child that she was carrying either by support payments are divorcing his wife, Kathy, and marrying her. Putnam eventually confessed to the crime after failing a polygraph administered by the FBI. However, he told a 'sweet and endearing' version of how his 'accidentally' killed his mistress. Unfortunately, Pike County officials let him enter his plea and confession before forensics were completed and Putnam was sentenced to sixteen years; not even in a state penitentary but in a Federal medical center. Jones provides a clear, concise, yet unopinionated, account of the politics played in closing the books on Susan Smith's case; just a poor girl from the hills of Kentucky, who was well known to use and sell drugs and defraud the welfare system. Kentucky and FBI officials make it clear that Smith just wasn't worth Putnam serving a life sentence. Quite frankly, I had the feeling that, given the opportunity, Putnam would have walked away a free man if not for his confession. This is truly one of the best true crime books I have read. Everyone in this book is portrayed just as they are; readers are not given the 'airbrushed' version created by many authors, especially of law enforcement officials. If you enjoy reading the truth, irregardless of it's ugliness, check out The FBI Killer. You will not be disappointed.

I liked this book very much. It not only chronicles the murder, but all that led up to it. Ms. Jones provides a vivid description of Susan Daniels Smith (the victim), a poor coal miner's daughter, and life in the Tug Valley. The author is able to convey the desperation of Susan Smith's last days. She also hints there was a possible FBI cover-up of certain aspects of the case, e.g., Ms. Smith's pregnancy, and the many problems in the agency's Pikeville, Kentucky, office. Any reader of true crime will love this book.

I had seen the movie about this story and was very eager to read the book. I wasn't disappointed. The book is far more realistic than the film, portraying the victim and her family as what they were, poor people further abused by a system that was designed to protect a killer that was part of it. Mark Putnam was the perfect FBI agent, thus, from almost the moment of Susan's Daniels Smiths disappearance his lies went unchecked. Anything he said about the victim was automatically believed, after all, she was poor, she was a drug user, she was married to a drug dealer....if it hadn't been for the persistence of Smith's family, especially her sister, this crime may well have gone unsolved, leaving Mark Putnam free to commit this type of crime again. I highly recommend this novel, one of the best "True Crime" stories I've ever read.