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Title: The Wire in the Blood by Val McDermid ISBN: 0-312-98365-4 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 07 July, 2002 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.56 (9 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: One can smile and smile and be a villain.
Comment: Val McDermid's "The Wire in the Blood" is not a whodunit. It features a psychopath whose identity is never in doubt. He is so devoid of compassion that one wonders if he is human at all. Jacko Vance is, to his adoring public, a saint on earth. After losing his lower right arm while attempting to save several victims at the scene of a terrible car accident, Jacko becomes a famous television personality and a tireless charity worker. What no one knows is that this seemingly kind and selfless man is hiding a monstrous secret.
Jacko's adversaries are Dr. Tony Hill, a skilled psychological profiler, and DCI Carol Jordan, Hill's former lover and someone whose judgment and skills he still values. What begins as an exercise in profiling turns deadly serious when one of Hill's young students is found brutally murdered and mutilated. Hill and Jordan pull out all the stops to find the serial killer whom they believe is responsible for the disappearance of a number of teenaged girls as well as the murder of the young police officer whom Dr. Hill was training.
Val McDermid's writing is not for the squeamish. She depicts Jacko's sadism in great detail and she doesn't shrink from killing off likeable characters. I think that McDermid went a little overboard in making Jacko Vance almost too expert in his manipulation of the public and the police. The author unfairly paints the police as naive bumblers, needing Hill and Jordan to do their sleuthing for them. I doubt that real police officers would be as vulnerable to Vance's charm.
At approximately five hundred pages, the book is a bit too long. It could have been more concise with no loss of plot or character development. A secondary plot about a serial arsonist adds little to the novel. However, McDermid keeps the suspense at a high level throughout the book and her writing is always skillful and hard-hitting. All in all, "The Wire in the Blood" is a reasonably good, but not extraordinary, psychological thriller.
Rating: 4
Summary: Continuing a great trend
Comment: Author Val McDermid must be one of the hottest writers around in the thriller stakes. I particularly like her ability to create a character in a few lines. Dr Tony Hill is once again matching wits with a deadly and dangerous opponent. A deeply flawed and anxious hero for the 21st century.
Murder is no parlour game in McDermid's universe and the killings are horrific. The suspense builds until you just cannot put down the book. Her driving narrative and ability to sweep you along are tremendous. I think the Tony Hill books are some of the finest of genre and McDermid can proudly stake her claim to be one of the top thriller writers in the world today.
That said, it is rather nice to go out to the garden and breath some fresh air when you have finished. McDermid creates a very nasty and black world. It occured to me that she owes a little to the gothic writers with their castles and torture chambers. And Hill is like a tortured knight bringing the evil killer to justice.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent cat and mouse game
Comment: In THE MERMAIDS SINGING, Val McDermid introduced her readers to Dr. Tony Hill and Detective Sergeant Carol Jordan. They had teamed up to track down a serial killer who brutally tortured his victims before killing them. They respected each other and worked well together. However, the case took a lot out them and they started to drift apart.
Several months have passed since this horrifying case. Carol Jordan has been promoted and now she is Detective Chief Inspector and in charge of her own group of detectives in the town of Seaford. They are currently working on a case involving a series of arson fires happening around town. Jordan's squad is reluctantly investigating the case until one person dies. Jordan shows them no mercy and works them hard in finding out who is responsible of creating those fires. She will take this case very personally before, during, and after the suspect is arrested.
When we first met Dr. Hill in THE MERMAIDS SINGING he was heading a task force studying the viability of using profilers in police investigations. It was decided that the project is a go and Tony is training a special group of police officers in investigative profiling techniques. The author introduces each one of the students and explains the reason why they decided to become profilers. One day Dr. Hill gives them an exercise involving the unsolved disappearances of several teenage girls all around the United Kingdom. Tony invites Carol to the class to see if she would lend her technical expertise to the class discussion. Most of the students take this project as regular assignment but one of them sees it as much more. She analyzes every single aspect of their disappearances and tries to find a unifying factor. What she discovers is so outrageous that she discusses it in the class. She is ridiculed but undeterred. It is not until someone in her class is brutally murdered that Tony decides to do his own investigation.
The reader learns the identity of the kidnapper and killer earlier on in the book before any of the other characters. We learn why he is how he is and why he does what he does. McDermid evens spends the time in giving developing the characters and learning what they are thinking to some of the victims before they are brutally murdered. It might be considered to be a bit sadist but just because they are characters in the book it does not mean that they cannot be disposable. Some readers might be upset with this but it helps to strengthen the plot.
Tony Hill, Carol Jordan and the students all have a personal stake in bringing the murderer to justice. He thinks that he is invincible. Eventually at the end of the book there is a showdown and the bad guy is stopped. The villain is one of the most evil characters in books right now probably second to Hannibal Lecter. The author opens the possibility of bringing this character back. It will be a pleasure to learn about the repercussions of this book in her next Tony Hill/Carol Jordan booked called THE LAST TEMPTATION. Even if the villain does not return it will be nice to find out what happened afterward even if it is only a few sentences.
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Title: The Last Temptation by Val McDermid ISBN: 0312986319 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 19 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: A Place of Execution by Val McDermid ISBN: 0312979533 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 17 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Killing the Shadows by Val McDermid ISBN: 0312983387 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 19 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Distant Echo by Val McDermid ISBN: 0312301995 Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Report for Murder by Val McDermid ISBN: 1883523249 Publisher: Spinsters Ink Pub. Date: June, 1998 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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