FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

At the start of Smith’s superb third thriller to feature Ana Grey (after 2003’s Good Morning, Killer), the FBI special agent, who’s still recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder after shooting “a crazed detective on a suicide mission” seven months earlier, learns that the skeletal remains of her missing onetime fiancé, fellow special agent Steve Crawford, have turned up in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. Ana later finds out Steve was murdered by members of an anarchist group with a penchant for homemade bombs. After training at the FBI’s undercover school, Ana uses an alias to penetrate the group, which includes a former FBI agent gone bad, Dan Stone. As “Allfather” Stone plots a terrorist act he calls “the Big One,” Ana must burrow through layers of paranoia to discover the precise threat the FBI is dealing with. Ana’s nuanced and coolly observational narrative voice perfectly complements the well-paced action, which builds to a satisfying conclusion that leaves open the next chapter of Ana’s story.

From Kirkus Reviews

When bits of agent Steve Crawford are found by a hiker in the Cascades, Ana Grey, newly reassigned to active duty after a post-shootout hiatus (Good Morning, Killer, 2003), is sent undercover as Darcy DeGuzman to infiltrate Free Animals Now, the domestic terrorist cell Crawford had been watching. She connects with hazelnut farmers/activists Megan Tewsbury and Julius Emerson Phelps, whose fingerprints identify them as a former ’70s Berkley professor demonized by the FBI and rogue agent Dick Stone, who loved her enough to switch sides. Stone is planning what he calls the Big One, but before she can uncover what that means, Ana must decide whom to trust. The two street kids helping on the farm seem like loose cannons; the itinerant cowboy may not be what he seems; and Ana even has doubts about the higher-ups at the Bureau, including her minder Donnato and bigwig politico Peter Abbott. Ana and Stone, undercover for different reasons, must sidestep treachery from every direction. At length a Waco-flavored standoff leaves a despairing Ana to fly away with the slimmest of support systems.

Smith creates an undercover training regime for Ana that the FBI might do well to emulate. She’s so expert at implanting stress that you could become bipolar just from reading one chapter. Feisty, disturbing and exceptionally well done.  (First printing of 50,000)

FROM LA MAGAZINE

Given its last half century, from J. Edgar Hoover’s sartorial indiscretions to the Robert Hanssen spy scandal, why does the FBI still seem so sexy? Part of the reason is murder mysteries like April smith’s JUDAS HORSE, the third in the series starring FBI special agent Ana Grey. After a fellow agent is blown to bits by an ecoterrorist group calling itself Free Animals Now (FAN), the LA-based Grey goes undercover to investigate. It’s creepy, chest-thumping stuff, with snitches and loyalty tests and the good guys and villains constantly in flux.

From The Los Angeles Times

“Smith has produced a genuinely scarifying thriller with a consistently vertiginous, through the looking glass mood. Every character is a hologram of sorts and every episode has the momentum of a theme-park ride. One of Smith’s cleverest tricks here is her unsettling depiction of unlikely alliances: Ana turns out to have more in common with the villain, Stone, than she might ever have imagined.” - Donna Rifkind

From The New York Sun

“A runaway but cagey novel that never lets up . . . The incidents with which Ana must deal [at FBI undercover school] are so fast, harrowing, and breathtaking that they are like skiing down the expert slope while juggling vials of nitroglycerine.” - Otto Penzler

From Los Angeles Magazine

“Why does the FBI still seem so sexy? Part of the reason is murder mysteries like April Smith’s Judas Horse . . . It’s creepy, chest-thumping stuff, with snitches and loyalty tests and the good guys and villains constantly in flux.”

From The New York Times Book Review

“A feverishly pitched adventure . . . With every dynamic scene, including a wild mustang roundup that thunders right off the page, the reader, like Ana, is reminded of the lost ideals and divided loyalties that make these mortal conflicts so bloody—and so sad.” - Marilyn Stasio

From Library Journal

“Smith does a convincing job of conveying the trials of maintaining a dual identity . . . The narrative is fast-paced without becoming frantic, and the intertwining story lines are deftly handled. Highly recommended.” - Ann Forister

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