Excellent introduction to Val McDermid - Rated 
I was on the lookout for a good thriller since the demise of Patricia Cornwell & James Patterson into my `never again' list. Then I stumbled across Val McDermid here on Amazon and am so glad I snapped up Killing the Shadows.
The plot centers around a serial killer who seems to be targeting thriller writers and killing them in the same manner that they killed the victims in their books. When one author dies it's a shock, when two die it looks like a pattern but the police are convinced that there's no connection so no need to panic. Fiona Cameron is a profiler who believes otherwise and since her partner is a thriller writer she's more reason than many to be worried about the possibility of the police being wrong.
The twists and turns in this book were excellent and it was a real whodunit right until the very end. I'm not sure what the point was of the whole Spanish side-story though. That could probably have been omitted and nobody would have missed it. All in all though this was an excellent book and although it may have been my first Val McDermid book it certainly won't be my last.
Not the usual 5 stars but still very enjoyable - Rated 
I love Val McDermid and look forward to going on the usually exciting and enjoyable journey of her thrillers. This was very good but not up to the 5 stars of, for instance, the Distant Echo or the Last Temptation.
In this book I was introduced to a new protagonist. I thought that it was an interesting and different slant to the usual psychological profiler, using geographical patterns worked out by computer instead. However, at times I did feel that, for a psychologist, the leading character appeared to be further removed than expected from what must have been part of her original training i.e. on a couple of ocassions, her suppositions were a little niave.
There were 3 lines to the plot - one of which I did not completly see the relevance. This could have been dispensed with, leaving more time to build up suspense, characterisation - whatever!
At the end I was compelled to sit up late at night to read on.
All in all - recommended! A superior thriller.
New crime to read - Rated
I was looking for a new crime writer to add to my collection and I think I've found it in Val McDermid. Drawn at first only by the back cover and the use of computers rather than the more known versions of profiling, I thought I'd give it a go and very glad I did. Ms McDermid keeps the plot moving along and just when you think you may have spotted the 'bad guy' when you know the obvious is just too obvious, she twists the tale again. Good read!
Must read before you die! - Rated
First book I've read from Val McDermid. It's absolutely awesome! I couldn't put the book down and have to finish it in less than 24h.
She's done it again..... - Rated
“They’d been catastrophically wrong. Terror clutched at his heart. He knew exactly what lay in store for him – after all, he’d written the script.”
How do you pass the time at home when you want to be entertained? For many they will watch the television, perhaps surf the internet looking for who knows what, but if you’re halfway through a Val McDermid novel there’s really no choice – switch off those computers and TVs, save energy and the planet, and bury your nose in yet another crime mystery thriller that will reach parts of your mind no film, programme or website could possibly achieve and have you longing for it never to end. You won’t get much sleep, mind, because if (like me) you read in bed before going to sleep, you might just find yourself squeezing a couple of matchsticks between your eyelids so as to keep reading ‘just one more chapter’ way past the time when you really should have turned out the light.
Killing the Shadows is the seventh VM novel I have read so far, and although I’m reading her work in the wrong chronological order it hasn’t spoilt the pleasure of enjoying one of this country’s leading crime fiction writers. As far as I know, this is one of three one-off novels McDermid has written and not part of a series – it’s a lot better than The Distant Echo and probably on a par with the fact-based A Place of Execution. At not far short of 600 pages it’s not a quick read but there’s not so much as a sentence of padding anywhere, there’s value and impression in every line. Admittedly it is built around a rather convoluted and far-fetched plot, but I buy books for entertainment fare and in this regard it did not let me down. It’s a serial murder story, obviously told in great detail but far from X-rated in the descriptive sense, something that the author has been known to do in other novels such as the outstanding The Torment of Others. Central character Fiona Cameron is a psychologist and profiler working with the police but a markedly different personality to the well-known Tony Hill from that high-profile series that was adapted for television. Her partner is a thriller writer who unbeknown to either of them is on a macabre hit-list drawn up by someone seeking a bizarre and twisted revenge for wrongful imprisonment, and seeks revenge by staging murders that copy those that appear in the fictional work of each writer. The body count starts in Toledo in Spain before switching to various British locations, from the centre of London to the remotest hills of northern Scotland.
If I have any criticism it would be that the ending is somewhat ‘small’ in comparison to the huge and comprehensively created build-up; I would have welcomed another 50 or 100 pages if that could mean that the tension of the conclusion could have matched that of the meat and bones of the main story preceding it. But that would be harsh on a writer who has demonstrated tremendous flexibility in her writing approach over the years, she has the capacity to adapt and improve as well as having that gender-neutral writing style often a weakness in both male and female authors, and in particular she always demonstrates a thoroughness of research of topic, occupation and location together with a consistently convincing understanding of the subject matter. Clearly she is a highly intelligent and imaginative writer who just keeps on getting better and better with each book. Keep them coming, Val.
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