Un asesino en serie está sembrando el terror en la pequeña ciudad de Bradfield. Han aparecido los cadáveres de cuatro hombres brutalmente torturados y mutilados. La policía está desorientada a causa de la falta de pistas. Debido al depravado modo de actuar del asesino, decide recurrir a la colaboración de Tony Hill, un psicólogo experto en el estudio de mentes criminales. Hill, acostumbrado a relacionarse con homicidas ya encarcelados, debe enfrentarse ahora a un monstruo que está en libertad, con el riesgo de convertirse en su próxima víctima.

Tony Hill Book 1

I can't say that I really liked the book but it held my attention pretty well. I would certainly try the second in the series.

I'm not particularly squeamish when it comes to graphic violence but there were several scenes and/or descriptions that put me off. If you're opposed to hardcore torture, you might want to skip it. ( )

I watched most of the UK "Wire in the Blood" TV series based on the Hill/Jordan books but abandoned it eventually because I tired of the dark intensity. Nevertheless, having since read other books written by Val McDermid that I thoroughly enjoyed, I decided to give this one a try when I was looking for an audio book I already owned but hadn't yet read .

In a nutshell, the descriptions of torture interfered with my enjoyment of the book. It was well plotted, certainly, but I think I may have had my fill of serial killers doing their work in grisly fashion for this year. Maybe I'd be up for a smotherer or a straightforward strangler...

My lack of enthusiasm for this book hasn't turned me off to Val McDermid; I look forward to reading more of her. But I'll avoid any more Hill/Jordan.

( )

What to do with this one? I decided to re-read the first in the series while my library is still out of bounds and I'm a bit disappointed. It's been years since I first read it and it's a bit lacklustre. Even though this is (I think) McDermid's 9th published novel it feels a bit amateurish in places (some of her more recent writing has blown me away, so she's improved greatly) and it lacks the vivid sense of immersion that came in some of the later books.

I read the 3rd edition and was surprised to find what seem to be editing errors still in there. The subtle one was that the book started out being written in 3rd person omniscient with all the attendant head jumping within a scene, then stopped doing that and switched to 3rd person limited apart from occasional lapses about 20% of the way in. The clanger was when journalist Penny Burgess started writing an article giving herself the byline "Penny Jordan", a continuity error where she acquired the surname of another character for one sentence. I wonder how many editions that error made it through or if it's still in there?

The other thing that I remembered also bugging me from the first read is the poor representation of what home computers were capable of back then. In 2020 we're finally entering the "deep fake" era but McDermid has anyone with a few thousand pounds to spare being able to create photo-realistic film animation by scanning in video footage to a computer...it's kind of ridiculous. Several characters confess to being essentially computer illiterate which is maybe McDermid venting her own frustration with I.T. but honestly I can't see how this sci-fi technology passed through the research process. Not only does the technology exist in this story but it's apparently really easy to use, you just need to pay for it. Hmm.

And I can't finish up without mentioning the problematic spoiler content:
The serial killing confused trans woman who we're ultimately told isn't really a trans woman but actually a self-loathing gay man, who targets straight men who she perceives to have rejected her... it kind of makes me cringe in 2020 because there's no positive trans representation to contrast with so the only trans character is not only an insane villain but also isn't really trans and is kidding themselves. Not great, and not helped by Carol calling her 'he, she, it' which maybe you can put down to a clumsy attempt at showing her anger at Tony's near-death experience if you're being generous.

I've seen others critiquing the homophobia on display in the book but it all seems to come from characters we're not supposed to like, especially Tom Cross, so I don't think this is a gay-hating text as some seem to read it. McDermid herself is gay and I think she's setting up a bit of a straw man police stereotype in Cross to make him look a fool. I question whether someone as vile as Cross would have still been in the job even in 1995 but it's fine, he doesn't come out of it well.

The characters of Carol and Tony only really felt like the characters I'm familiar with in their final interaction of the epilogue, so it feels like it took a whole book for McDermid to find her feet. I remember not liking the second book so we'll have to see whether time has changed my mind. Reluctantly, this gets only 3 stars. ( )