Above Suspicion

The author does an excellent job explaining the cultural history of Appalachian pioneers and coal-mining communities, which is critical for understanding how people's vulnerabilities collided with their circumstances to create this truly sad story. The story is well-crafted and the characters jump off the page. It was hard to put this book down, and harder still to shake the tragic ending. I can't wait for the movie!

This was an interesting, well-written and exciting book. I did not realize how it would turn out but it was a good story. I had not seen it on TV or at the movies. It always bugs me when books are full of distracting typos. That was not the case with this one which was very well edited. The author describes the area so well I felt I was in eastern Kentucky.

This is a good story, very interesting and a story I was not familiar with, though I read a lot of true crime. The problem was in the writing. There was way too much history given on the area, seemed to go on and on and was just not necessary. Also, there seemed to be a lot of information repeated. Maybe a lot of the conversations between Mark and Susan did take place over and over but I feel we got the jest after hearing the same thing several times. Same with the conversations between Mark and his wife Kathy. Additionally, there were pages missing (I assume anyway and I had a Kindle edition). One page ended with Kathy calling Mark at work and the next page was something totally different, just kind of ended and picked up in the middle of another story. It seemed to pick up and move along more quickly once they were onto Mark but that wasn't until much later in the book. I hate to pay for a book that is short but this could have been a lot shorter and covered the information adequately. Again, the story in itself is good though.

Long book. Massive amount of data.
Many lives affected!
That thin line that good must not cross.
Mark Putnam strived to be an FBI posterchild...
Kathy and Susan... but what about the children!
Real people. Real story. I'm exhausted for all of them...

Long book. Massive amount of data.
Many lives affected!
That thin line that good must not cross.
Mark Putnam strived to be an FBI posterchild...
Kathy and Susan... but what about the children!
Real people. Real story. I'm exhausted for all of them...

SPOILER ALERT! I will give you the entire plot and then you can skip reading the book. A rookie FBI agent is assigned to a hillbilly town in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. One of his main informants is a hillbilly/white trash/drug using/promiscuous 27 year old woman named Susan Smith with two kids and an abusive drug-using ex-husband . FBI agent’s wife is kind of reformed white trash, former down-and-out almost prostitute herself whose life got turned around when she met her husband. Naturally she has a lot in common with Susan. Neither husband or wife seem to have any boundaries with Susan, although the relationship is supposed to be entirely professional, and Susan and the wife spend hours on the phone chatting daily (which, unfortunately, we have to read about in agonizing detail) with the wife trying to coach the down and out Susan. Susan’s biggest goal, however, is to replace the wife and eventually she seduces the FBI agent (although, of course, we have no one’s word about how that happened except the FBI agent). You can see this coming a mile away and cannot figure out why this would be a surprise to anybody. Not that you actually care. Agent and wife are relocated to Florida. Susan claims she’s pregnant with his child (although it’s intimated that she miscarried that baby and this is somebody else’s baby). Agent comes back to Kentucky for a trial he’s involved in, Susan informs him she’ll destroy his career unless he leaves his wife and marries her. At one point she is screaming and making a scene so he gets her to drive to a secluded spot so everybody won’t hear her shrieking. He says he’ll agree to adopt the baby and raise it but he’s not leaving the wife and kids. She attacks him and rips his skin with her long nails. In trying to protect himself from her, he somehow accidentally strangles her. Or something. Anyway, she’s dead. Totally not his fault. Completely self defense. Or something. Author is not interested in exploring this. He dumps her body and returns to Florida. He’s plagued with guilt, or something, and when the FBI investigates her disappearance he denies it, sort of, but volunteers all kinds of incriminating facts, and basically just drags it out endlessly and then confesses. Not clear at all any of his motivation and frankly you end up not caring about any of these people. Sorry.

Great read, and gives insight of the mindset and the attitudes of people who know nothing but their
"right" to expect a check from the government.
It's a really sad and hopeless situation with no end in sight.

This excellent book, which has been out of print for years and only available through used-book dealers, is being adapted as a major motion picture starring Emilia Clarke ("Game of Thrones") and Jack Huston ("Boardwalk Empire," and the upcoming "Ben-Hur.").

First published in 1993, this current publication has the addition of follow-up notes by the author updating the status of those involved and his observations during his return visit to the area of Pikeston, Kentucky.
Mark Putnam and his family accept his first “G-man” assignment in the dreary town of Pikeston Kentucky. His wife, Kathy, is very supportive and patient with the extensive hours required for him to make a good first impression. Part of his job is using informants, one of whom is a young spit-fire local girl, Susan, who falls head over heels in love with the handsome, professional, and preppy young man.
Without proper supervisory guidance and at times, overwhelmed with the duties, paperwork, and crookedness of the people, including the law, Mark makes some bad decisions and falls prey to Susan’s constant suggestions. What follows is the sad crumbling of his faith in himself, his career and his family, culminating in an instant of overreaction that affects everyone for life.
Joe Sharkey has done an extensive and tireless research of the people, places, personalities, and frames of thought that shaped these individuals and the events that unfolded. The end result is fact-based journalism at its best. He can encourage the reader to feel sympathy for the perpetrator, the victim and both families, and disdain for others in the outer circles who contributed to the perfect storm in numerous ways.
This is an engrossing read, never boring or slow, and will keep your attention to the last page. I look forward to the movie coming out in 2017. It will be difficult to convey the emotions. As Sharkey noted in his final comments, the challenge for both the book and the movie was to reflect the “female gaze”. I suggest reading the book first to get a better understanding of the emotions of those affected.
(I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thank you to Open Road Integrated Media and NetGalley for making it available.)

Joe Sharkey's ABOVE SUSPICION is the faced paced and interesting story about FBI agent Mark Putnam and the murder of Susan Smith. Putnam, a brand new agent was, inexplicably, initially assigned in 1987 with his wife and child to a two man office in off-the-beaten-path Pikesville, KY, a coal mining regions in the hills of Appalachia. Working and learning basically on his own, Putnam became known as a hard working and dedicated agent and a rising star in the Bureau.
Putnam also cultivated paid informants as was then customary in the FBI and for all I know may still be. However the line between business and the personal aspects of the cop/informer relationship became blurred, as is often the case (see Whitey Bulger in Boston).
One of Putnam's informants was a local mountain girl named Susan Smith. Smith was a poor, uneducated, drug addicted mother of two, who Putnam and his wife Kathy, both liked and felt sorry for. But Susan fell in love/became obsessed with Mark. And eventually she and Mark had a brief affair. This of course only increased Susan's obsessions which alternated between fury at Mark when she realized that he only cared about her as his informant and the desire to be with him always.
Susan informed Mark she was pregnant with his child, and though it was never established whether she was pregnant at all or if so if the child was Marks's, the situation created a great deal of stress on both Mark and Susan. And in June of 1989 Mark took Susan out in his car to discuss the matter. According to Mark, Susan was drug addled that day and began to physically attack him in the car. A fight ensued and when it was over, Mark had strangled Susan. He dumped her body and went on with his life and his family, telling no one and living every day with guilt and shame. A year later he was arrested, told investigators where Susan's body was, and confessed to the crime.

Sharkey is a really fine true crime writer. This book is the product of extensive research and the reader learns a lot about all the principals, Mark and Kathy and Susan. There is no filler, no repetition, and as in the best of true crime, I was unaware of the author until, when I had finished, I thought about what an excellent job he had done. A very good book.
I highly recommend ABOVE SUSPICION and thank my friend in the marginal state of Ohio for sending it to me.