A great disappointment. I’ve read a few of McDermid's books and for the most part liked them, especially the Tony Hill mystery/thrillers, like this. The multiple story lines were distracting, the undercover plot line was ridiculous and it’s far too long—528 pages?? I would have given up but I gave McDermid the benefit of the doubt, which I shouldn’t have done.

The first Val McDermid novel I read, quite a while ago now, was her 2004 outing A Distant Echo, which I still regard as one of my favorite crime-fiction novels of all time. I was pretty keen on its follow-up, too, A Darker Domain (2008). My experiences of the other novels of hers that I've read -- maybe two or three of them -- have been a bit more mixed, so I suppose it's inevitable that now I've come across one that I don't like very much at all.

I don't have time/energy right now for a detailed justification of my view (I'm not long out of the hospital, poor bubs that I am), so lemme try a brief note:

Series heroine Carol Jordan is brought into the investigation of a vile European super-criminal who trades in guns, drugs, prostitutes and illegal migrants. She engineers it that profiling ex-colleague and sweetheart Tony Hill is likewise brought to Europe to help in the investigation of a serial killer who's targeting experimental psychologists in Germany and Holland. Obviously their adventures overlap.

My trouble was that I felt as if I were reading a novel made up of all sorts of elements that I'd come across before. Yes, someone had stuck 'em in a bag and shaken them thoroughly before spilling them back out on the tabletop, but that didn't seem to make them any more freshly sparkling for me. Rather than being tantalized by each new plot turn, I found myself, well, groaning at the appearance of yet another Old Acquaintance. Maybe I've just read too many novels about serial killers and too many novels about ruthless but ravishingly handsome studly super-criminals. Putting the two tropes together didn't seem like novelty, more like a doubling up of cliche.

Matters weren't helped by the straightforward utilitarianism of McDermid's prose. It's a style that obviously has served her very well indeed elsewhere. For me it just didn't do the trick here.

I'm not going to abandon McDermid -- I have her A Place of Execution waiting on my shelf, and I'd like to read more of her standalones and of the novels subsequent upon A Distant Echo -- but I may well steer clear of the Carol Jordan/Tony Hill series in future.

This was okay, but too much gratuitous violence for me. After reading Karen Pirie and 1989 I'm going back to Val McDermids books. So far I prefer her more recent books.

3.5 stars

This 3rd installment of Jodan/Hill series is an exciting thriller. It shows the intricate plotting and great character development of the author, Val McDermid. It's a bit of a nail-biter and very hard to put down and kept me reading long into the night. I'm now looking forward to reading the next book. I highly recomend this series as they are very entertaining reads.

This wasn't my favorite in the series. It jumped around all over the place..literally in the setting, characters, and storylines. This was the first time I was confused and had to keep re-reading to figure out what was happening in the story. I will continue with the series because the next book isn't described as this one with multiple settings and plots. Only 3 stars.

DCI Carol Jordan is offered the chance at the job of her dreams, providing she can successfully complete an overseas undercover mission. Jordan has never worked undercover before and this is a particularly dangerous and fraught mission - getting close to a drug dealer/human trafficker. Meanwhile Dr Tony Hill has been working in academia for the past few years, but he becomes involved in the tracking of serial killer operating in Europe which takes him close to where Carol is. When things go wrong for both of them, they have to rely on each other.

There's one thing about the author, they don't shy away from showing the darkest places of the human mind. Human trafficking, torture, sexual assault, and death all feature alongside historic atrocities committed by the Nazis. It's brutal in places. We do get a little advancement in Carol & Tony's relationship but the ending of the book sort of places that in jeopardy. The thing that really bugged me was that Carol was so focused on her undercover work, when the slip-up happened, it felt incongruous as I didn't feel that she would make that kind of rookie mistake. For that and the unnecessary sexual assault at the end, I rate this one 3.5 stars (rounded up to 4).

Two and a half stars.
So much going on it was difficult to enjoy the story. The plot felt forced and implausible, and the damage the author decided to cause to the main characters was too much. I really enjoyed the first two books so this one was a shock.
I think I'll put the series on the back burner for now.

I have about 30 pages to go and have been stuck at this point for quite a long time because I am scared that the main characters are going to get hurt. I'm too emotionally involved to be able to finish reading this book at night.

You can tell from the start in this one that major trouble is coming for the lead characters. It's a very doom-laden story. Neither Jordan nor Hill are treated quite fairly by some of their superiors and some of the consequences will be far-reaching indeed. Lots of ugly violence here, and very effective tension in the plotting.

Audio version of this book

Well, the plot kept me engaged, but one has to suspend a bit of disbelief at times. One of the villains was quite interesting, while one other, the Serb lieutenant, was just a stereotypical East European goon straight out of central casting. But my main problem with this story, along with nearly all modern crime fiction, is that authors seem to strive to outdo eachother in the number of murders and the sadism involved in their execution. At least in this case McDermid tried to examine the mind and background of one of the killers, but for the most part, there was little in this book which set it above the rest of the genre.