Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. McDermid (A Clean Break) enters new ground with a dark tale that is more complex, more carefully crafted and far more disturbing than her Kate Brannigan mysteries. By the time the police admit that Continue reading » Val McDermid is one of the few crime authors who can be convincing when it comes to ‘writing tough’, yet retain a powerful emotional insight. … Her capacity to uncover the roots of anger and fear have never been better demonstrated than in The Last Temptation. The real legacy of the horrors of the Second World War is… the one at the heart of this book: the way in which the experience of wartime suffering is bequeathed by the victims to the next generation. … It is part of McDermid’s strength that she makes Jordan and her ‘target’ into rounded human beings with whose feelings the reader can engage, and that the love affair between Hill and Jordan is skilfully developed… Most powerful of all, and a unique voice in a novel of this type, is a low-pitched authorial rage about the crimes committed upon children in concentration camps by the very people who should have protected them… McDermid is doing something quite extraordinary with the crime fiction suspense thriller.

The Last Temptation] is a masterful examination of evil and the relics of Nazi and Stasi years in Germany. This intriguing second novel by the author of Report for Murder again casts lesbian Scottish journalist Lindsay Gordon. Lindsay is living temporarily in Italy when fellow writer Alison Maxwell is Continue reading » Though McDermid skillfully alternates point of view and creates memorable scenes and complex characters, her latest falls short of the high standard set by her previous novel, Continue reading »

Returning to Glasgow from a self-imposed exile to avoid the political flap set off by events in Common Murder (1995), freelance journalist Lindsay Gordon discovers her world melodramatically upended. Continue reading » A new chief constable, James Blake, arrives at Bradfield CID in McDermid's excellent sixth Tony Hill novel (after Beneath the Bleeding). Since Blake takes a skeptical view of both Tony's Continue reading » The waitress at the Renaissance St. Louis Grand Hotel bar brings a bowl of potato chips. “You’re bad,” Val McDermid, the Scotswoman across the table from me, in town as the Continue reading » In McDermid's crafty stand-alone thriller, psychiatrist Charlotte "Charlie" Flint gives expert testimony at the Leicester murder trial of Bill Hopton that contributes to his acquittal. When Hopton Continue reading »

Confronting the worst of contemporary crime and struggling to unravel roots that lie deep in the tormented past of Nazi atrocities and Stasi abuses, Tony and Carol are forced to battle for survival against overwhelming odds. In this morass of doublecross and doubledealing, they have no one to trust but each other. has become the best of actor Robson Greer's omnipresent TV outings, has published most recently a Continue reading »Val McDermid just gets better and better. The Last Temptation is intelligent about undercover police work and psychological profiling as well as moving on the human cost to the people who have to do society's dirty work. An intriguing, 200-year-old mystery propels this multilayered stand-alone from British author McDermid set in England's Lake District. Scholar Jane Gresham pursues her theory that HMS Continue reading » The latest addition to McDermid's dark and gritty police procedurals, which have become even more popular thanks to the BBC America TV program The Wire in the Continue reading » Val McDermid is one of the few crime authors who can be convincing when it comes to 'writing tough' yet retain a powerful emotional insight... McDermid is doing something quite extraordinary with the crime fiction suspense thriller' Scotland on Sunday

McDermid's exhilarating fifth novel to feature Det. Chief Insp. Carol Jordan and Dr. Tony Hill (after The Torment of Others McDermid has become our leading pathologist of everyday evil... The subtle orchestration of terror is masterful' Guardian

Each of the 11 collaborative tales in this stellar sequel to the International Thriller Writers’ anthology FaceOff (2014) pairs a top-rank female thriller writer with a male counterpart. Continue reading » A] complex, brooding novel [which] boasts a highly complex… plot. McDermid is by far the most talented writer of the three [writers reviewed]… The climax of the book is quite horrifying…

Dr. Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, a former detective chief constable, still aren’t on speaking terms in their solid ninth outing (after 2013’s Cross and Burn), despite the closeness they once Continue reading » A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read. McDermid’s fiendishly clever eighth novel featuring forensic psychologist Tony Hill and detective Carol Jordan (after The Retribution) finds the two partners on the outs. Jordan has resigned from the Continue reading » But the case is about to come uncomfortably close to home. The next victim is a friend of his. And his former partner, DCI Carol Jordan, is herself in Germany, working undercover in a world where human life is cheaper than a drugs deal. She needs his help as much as the serial killer hunters do. At the outset of Scottish author McDermid’s engaging if at times overstuffed third Karen Pirie novel (after 2014’s The Skeleton Road), 17-year-old Ross Garvie and three mates steal a Land Continue reading »

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In this gruesomely fascinating book, former journalist and renowned suspense novelist McDermid (The Skeleton Road) explains the science behind solving crimes. Based on interviews with crime Continue reading » Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. A psychologically chilling and multifaceted thriller. … With consummate skill and pacing, she braids together the complex story lines through surprising revelations, heartstopping suspense and cruel double-crosses. McDermid’s writing and her understanding of the criminal mind get better with each novel. The Case of the Missing Conservatories'' is what lively and likeable Kate Brannigan, the English detective from Manchester introduced in Dead Beat , calls this, her second adventure, which founders Continue reading »