Val McDermid

This is the third of the three books by this author that I picked up cheaply in charity shops or library discard sales recently, and of the three was the one I enjoyed the most until the ending rather undercut that. It is one of a series about Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie, but I found it worked as a standalone novel. Unusually, it takes the Balkans conflicts as its background, which I haven't encountered as a setting for fiction previously.

Early on in the story, skeletal remains are found on the roof of an abandoned building and analysis of the teeth and a metal plate in the leg indicate work done in Eastern Europe. Identification of the body leads Pirie to make contact with a professor in Oxford, Maggie Blake, who has built a career upon the geopolitics of the Balkan states, following on from time spent there during the wars that took place, and her personal involvement with the dead man.

The story interweaves various narratives. As well as the more interesting thread which follows the investigation by DCI Pirie and her sidekick, for some of the time we are unfortunately forced to follow a couple of unlikeable lawyers who are attached to the organisation which is meant to be bringing war criminals to justice. Their organisation is shortly going to be wound up, but a new boss wants a solution to the violent deaths which have been meted out to several war criminals before they could be brought to trial, indicating that there is an intelligence leak in their organisation. Another thread is the POV of Professor Blake and a third is her memoir of the Balkans conflicts. The latter is a technique the author used in the previous book I read, A Trick of Dark and I found myself wondering why she didn't instead use a series of flashbacks to impart the information with vitality as other writers would have done. The memoir form came across as rather dry and bit boring. Usually, as in the previous book, its use indicates an unreliable narrator who doesn't set down how things really happened, something far more difficult to pull off if their actual POV in a "live" narrative is presented, but Blake isn't so much unreliable as unaware of what was going on. A key fact is presented in one chunk of this autobiography about three quarters through the book - which immediately clued me in to who the murderer must be.

And therein lay the problem because I didn't find it convincing that this person could have pulled off the types of violent attack described in the prologue. I also found the resolution rather ridiculous, especially the late-on insistence that a key character's nearest and dearest (trying to avoid spoilers) should be forcibly removed. It had been a pleasant surprise to discover that this series had escaped the usual cliche in detective novels of the embittered lonely driven individual with no family life, but presumably this event is meant to restore that status quo. Anyway, I found its outcome melodramatic and unnecessary, and it reduced my rating for this book from a 4 to a 3 star.… (mais)

Having never read any of McDermid's fiction, only her non fiction book on Forensic science, I thought it was high time to try one. Perhaps the choice of this book, which I now realise is quite well into a series, was not the best. Although I could see accomplished writing here, I found it hard to differentiate the various police forces who were investigating the murders and to emphasise with Tony Hill, a major character. Although he is damaged, having been brought up by a terrible mother and feeling abandoned by his, now deceased, father, it seemed a bit cliche to have this trope yet again - he is a great crime profiler because he is so messed up himself? I also had no patience with his prevarication about looking into his father's life, and the legacy left to him.

It also takes a stunningly long time for the police to realise the connection between the main murder cases. Agreed that the lack of joined up systems between forces would hamper things, but given the nature of the crimes, they would have been front page news and you would expect the media at least to link them. Given that Jordan's unit is comprised of supposedly creative and lateral thinking individuals, it does make them come over as rather dense to say the least.

Some of the minor characters are well developed such as Paula, one of the task force led by DCI Carol Jordan, and Ambrose who is on another force but is drawn into the main case. However, given the main role of IT in this, a lot of the key clues - such as the villain using approach and use computers in different locations - comes across as curiously old fashioned. The author is definitely wise to invent a social media site given what ends up happening under its auspices, but even in 2009 surely there was software which could obsfucate internet addresses? The development seemed slow in places although it picks up towards the - to me, not that convincing - denoument, so not a keeper for me.… (mais)

This is the second of three McDermid novels which I acquired second-hand and after the lacklustre first one - one of her series about Tony Hill - I had hoped for better with this, and at first it seemed more interesting.

A psychiatrist, Charlie Hill, is suspended over a controversy where she cleared a suspect in a murder case because he had not, in her opinion, committed a murder although he had the potential to do so (and she was right). He then went on to murder four women. While waiting for an opportunity to clear herself with the General Medical Council, and the press and public who have pilloried her, she is asked by her old university teacher to help investigate the background of a successful business woman. Jay Stewart has a tendency to leave bodies in her wake, although nothing has ever been proven against her, but is now involved with this teacher's daughter. Rather implausibly, the daughter's husband was murdered at the wedding reception, and the teacher believes he was yet another of Jay's victims, this time because he stood in the way of her having a relationship with the daughter.

None of the characters comes across as particularly convincing, even Jay whom we see writing her self-serving memoirs. Charlie is not very likeable - she spends most of the book lusting over another woman despite being in a committed relationship for the last seven years, and contemplating finishing with this long suffering soul. Rather hypocritical in view of the self-proclaimed moral high ground she claims to occupy. And despite supposedly being an intelligent woman and someone who profiles serial killers for the police, she is completely lacking in self-awareness and analysis, and fails to realise she is being manipulated by a master manipulator, every bit as psychopathic as she assumes Jay to be. So I rather lost patience with the character.

It was obvious pretty early on who the killer was, although I didn't work out a couple of the twists revealed at the end. But one of the problems with this book is that all the action has taken place off stage years ago and is therefore told in conversation or character internal monologue rather than being shown. The process of Charlie going from place to place, talking to people to find out if there is any evidence against Jay becomes protracted and some of the points do not seem to be resolved at the end - certain people seem to have completely escaped prison sentences for perverting the course of justice, for example. All in all, can only rate this at 2 stars.… (mais)