Different type of crime thriller - Rated 
Her characters are very harsh but you know that underneath their brave fronts they are usually vulnerable and that seems to draw them more sympathy from the reader.
What makes the Tony Hill books different from other crime thrillers is that having a psychologist involved in the story but not working directly as a cop gives the author the freedom to theorise about the murders, so providing a good contrast between this and the usual police procedural progress.
I was a bit disapppointed that there were two cases which were given prominence but turned out not to be linked and I felt that the child killer case was given a fairly swift windup at the end of the book.
Other than that a very good book. I've read several Val McDermid books and will read more.
A high tensioned thriller - Rated
This is the fourth book in the series featuring Dr Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan.
Two crimes to solve..... a past case involving two missing children and a murderer who is brutally killing women in a fashion which is identical to previous murders but with the killer already convicted and locked up.
This is one of the best books in the series, a high tensioned thriller with twists and turns along the way.
Very Good - Rated
A murderer is killing prostitutes, in a very gruesome manner. The method of the murders, is identical to a series of murders committed a few years earlier. However, that killer, Derek Tyler, has been put away, and could not have been involved, with the new cases.
I found this book a rivetting read. I felt the characters, DCI Carol Jordan and Tony Hill, along with the rest of the crime investigating team, seemed quite believable, and that the dialogue between them was realistic, as well.
The storyline never got dull, and there are a few twists in it, too. It kept me interested throughout.
Poorly plotted - Rated 
This book begins with Carol having moved to London, having been betrayed in some kind of police operation, which resulted in her being raped. The way in which Jordan tries to deal with the rape and it's effect on her relationship with Hill is one of the main themes in the book, and I feel a little guilty for my lack of patience with it. Having a strong female character having to deal with a rape is, in my opinion, becoming something of a cliche in crime fiction. It's to McDermid's credit that she doesn't drag it out or wrap it in sentimentality (in fact, Jordan is remarkably resilient about the whole thing which is refreshing), but it did feel too much blah blah blah to me and as it kept recurring as a theme, my eyes began to glaze over. Jordan is persuaded back to Bradfield by Brandon (her former Chief Constable, making a welcome return from The Mermaids Singing) to front an elite investigation squad looking at serial killers and re-opening cold cases when times are quiet. Hill, who moved to St Andrews to teach, hears that she's coming back and gets a part-time job in Bradfield's local high-security hospital (where it just so happens that Derek Tyler from the Blurb on the Back is a patient) so he can support her - including by buying a house and converting the ground floor into a flat for her, which struck me as a bit weird.
Jordan's first two cases are a cold case concerning the disappearance of two boys (an investigation headed up by Merrick, also making a welcome return from The Mermaids Singing) who was clearly personally invested in the investigation, which makes things awkward given that he's serving as her Inspector in the new unit. Her second case concerns the gruesome murder of prostitutes in a way echoing a previously solved case. One of my big problems with the book is that the cold case is very much the poor relation in terms of investigation (it's solved much too easily) and emotional impact (there's no look at the effect on the parents or indeed, any relationship with the people really suffering) and I think that structurally, it would have been more effective to just focus on the serial killer, which is clearly what she's more interested in. The reason why the cold case is there is to provide a Big Shocking Twist at the end (which was over too quickly to be effective and whilst I will miss the character concerned, they'd had such a poor ride throughout the story that it was really a relief) and to give Jordan a Potential Love Interest to help her get over her rape and force her and Hill to acknowledge their feelings for each other. Yawn.
Like I said, the serial killer story is more effective - McDermid is never better than when she's drawing on the gruesome and chilling and she gives just enough detail about the killings and the killer's motivation to make you keep your legs tightly crossed as you're reading the scenes. However, I was very disappointed by the way in which she rushed the ending. For starters, there is v. little explanation for how The Voice was controlling the killers - McDermid says it's to do with hypnosis or psychological suggestion, but there's no real explanation for how this was accomplished and it felt uncharacteristically ham-fisted. Then the denouement itself was incredibly unsatisfying - we literally go from having a face-off between Hill and the killer to the end of the book to a twist that the killer had killed Tyler to a further twist that Tyler had made a confession implicating The Voice and providing handy evidence to bring a conviction in the space of 4 pages. From someone like McDermid, I really expected better.
I'd also like to comment on how McDermid seemed to lose control of her character POVs towards the end - in order to bring the book to a conclusion we started getting inundated with perspectives - from The Voice, to her tools, to Hill and Jordan, to random policemen, to prostitutes with key pieces of evidence - it's a mess. Also a mess is the fact that the Big Reveal is dependent on the prostitutes being afraid of one of the members of Jordan's team - so afraid that when they can potentially reveal the killer to Jordan, they don't. Unfortunately, this fact comes at the end of the book and in going back through the scenes where you see the prostitutes interact with this character, there's nothing at all to indicate that they're any more afraid of them than they are the 'good' policemen. That's sloppy and unconvincing and again, I really expected better from McDermid.
Classic McDermid, would highly recommend - Rated 
I have read quite a lot of Val McDermid's work including all of the Tony Hill series. This is by far the best. A welcome return of Tony Hill and Carol Jordan.
McDermid surpassed all my expectations with this book. Carol Jordan's return to the British police force after her harrowing experiences abroad was brilliantly written. DCI Brandon offers her the chance to head her own squad and because of their previous working relationship Jordan accepted, although not without reservation. She then feels betrayed by Brandon when he wants one of her officers to try and set up a sting to catch the person torturing and killing prostitutes as he knows how much her own experience of doing just that went horrifically wrong for her.
Tony Hill was portrayed at his best in delving into the minds of the patients at the Psychiatric Facility where he worked and the mind of the killer, while still trying to conquer his own demons.
The sexual tension between Carol Jordan and Tony Hill was at a height and you were still kept wondering 'will they or won't they', especially with Hill offering Jordan his basement to live in as a totally self-contained flat.
This story had the usual twists and turns that McDermid is great at and as usual kept you guessing as to who the real culprit was.
The plot was expertly written and the characters were all extremely well rounded and of a great variety. The career minded policeman who didn't care who he had to step on to get glory, the policewoman hiding a secret lifestyle who wanted to do the best job she could even if it placed her in extreme danger to do so, the extremely ambitious head of the Psychiatriac Facility that Hill goes to work for who doesn't want anyone to be better than him at working out what is going on in the minds of the patients, the patient who killed his own children that you actually ended up having sympathy for and of course the psychopathic killer. Nobody seems to be better at getting into the mind of a psychopath than McDermid.
I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading Psychological Thrillers. In my personal opinion you are better to read the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series in order though as there are common elements running through the entire series.
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