Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Val McDermid is one of the most adventurous current crime writers, a welcome change from those whose every new book is a gradually less profitable clone of their previous one. This story, a sequel to the excellent 'The Mermaids Singing', is actually not much like it at all. The main characters return, but that's where the similarity ends. The Mermaids Singing focused in on several ghastly serial murders and the efforts of criminal profiler Tony Hill to get a grasp of the killer's mind, while battling the personal demons that seem to afflict every fictional police psychologist.
In 'The Wire in the Blood', girls are disappearing and dying and we guess quite early on who's responsible - the book details the efforts of the police to link the killings and determine the killer's identity. There are many stories in this book, and in the hands of a less skilled writer it could easily have fallen apart. Even with this writer's talent, there's a lot going on to keep track of, we're introduced in detail to a huge crowd of individuals in the first few chapters and there are lots of threads to follow.
The centerpiece of the plot is the return of Tony Hill, this time teaching a class of baby profilers, who all bond together and function as a forensic profiling collegiate ensemble when one of their own number disappears after getting too close to the truth. As well as heaps of information about profiling itself, the book offers insight into how territorial turf wars and the resentment by old-time beat police of the 'mumbo jumbo' of psychological tools can impact effective crime fighting - unlike his fictional FBI counterparts, Tony Hill does not ride in on a white horse as much as bang on the door and beg to be heard. Like many of Ms McDermid's books it's populated with strong females, with a nod of approval to gay women.
This isn't a perfect book - there are patches of coarse writing, some things are a bit hackneyed (hidden basement full of custom torture equipment...), the symbolism of the victim's injuries is over the top, and Dr Hill is only able to feel fully understood once his beloved, a Police Officer, also has 'blood on her hands'... hmmm. But it's interesting, touching on things most crime books don't, and is far better than many much better known best-sellers.
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The Wire in the Blood (St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries.)Across the country, dozens of teenage girls have vanished. Authorities are convinced they're runaways with just the bad luck of the draw to connect them. It's the job of criminal profilers Dr. Tony Hill and Carol Jordan to look for a pattern. They've spent years exploring the psyches of madmen. But sane men kill, too. And when they hide in plain sight, they can be difficult to find...He's handsome and talented, rich and famous--a notorious charmer with the power to seduce...and the will to destroy. No one can believe what he's capable of. No one can imagine what he's already done. And no one can fathom what he's about to do next. Until one of Hill's students is murdered--the first move in a sick and violent game for three players. Now, of all the killers Hill and Jordan have hunted, none has been so ruthless, so terrifyingly clever, and so brilliantly elusive as the killer who's hunting them...
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