The FBI Killer

By Andrew M. Jones and Aphrodite Jones

Book Overview

The shocking account of Mark Putnam, an up-and-coming federal agent who brutally murdered his undercover operative and lover. Exposes a raw side of life almost as frightening as the killer himself.--The Associated Press. 12 pages of photographs.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558176381
• ISBN13: 9781558176386
• Release Date: August 1970
• Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

Love your informant......... then kill her

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.

Very informative

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.

Great Insight into a truly bizarre crime

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.