Val McDermid

Jocko Vance was an Olympic athlete and a popular TV presenter; now he's a serial killer, maybe he always has been. Years and years ago Vance was tried and sent to jail by a cop named Carol Jordan and a profiler named Tony Hill. Now Vance has escaped from prison, looking for payback. Just for kicks, there's another serial killer targeting prostitutes in Worcester. Although the plot seems implausible, Val McDermid uses her prodigious talent to make this book one to be read on the edge of your seat.… (more)

Val McDermid's Karen Pirie series continues to be one of my favorites. Pirie is a bastion in the Harry Bosch School of Policing. In Broken Ground, she says "My ambition is to clear cases that everybody else has given up on. To give answers to people that have been waiting way too long to find out who blew a hole in their lives and why." That makes her just the type of character most crime fiction fans love.

Karen Pirie will succeed, no matter what it takes, and if it means she'll lose her job... so be it. This makes her a bitter pill to swallow for those above her who pay more attention to spreadsheets and the bottom line cost of things, and her boss is determined to get rid of her no matter how high her clearance rate is.

There are only two people in the Historic Cases Unit (HCU): Karen and a young Detective Constable known as The Mint. The Mint isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but Karen prefers to work with him as a known entity rather than deal with the unknown... who joins the unit as DS Gerry McCartney, a man who doesn't understand the mission of such a unit nor does he want to. One of the things I like so much about this series is that The Mint isn't mere comic relief. He's a good-natured young man who wants to do a good job, and he is getting better. How? He's "channeling" Karen's deceased partner and Karen herself-- and it's working. Good role models do make a difference.

There's enough going on with the characters to keep readers occupied, but the two cases the HCU is working on are compelling, too. And that's par for the course in this series. Strong characters and strong mysteries. If you haven't made the acquaintance of Karen Pirie, I strongly recommend that you do so. Start at the beginning with the award-winning The Distant Echo.… (more)

The Skeleton Road was one hell of a book. It took me three tries to get into it, but once I did, I had trouble putting it down.

A skeleton is found in a small parapet on top of an old Edinburgh building slated for demolition. The skeleton has a bullet hole in its head, and forensics determines that the murder victim has been there for seven or eight years. That is the beginning of a remarkable tale that takes in love, revenge, the horrifying genocides in the Balkans in 1991-1992, and a fascinating and beautifully painted cast of characters who feel so real that they might step off the page and into my living room.

The Skeleton road is an excellent but grim novel. I found out more about the Balkan wars than I ever wanted to, and will probably be beset by nightmares for the foreseeable future. I give fair warning that this is not a book to be read when you're feeling emotionally vulnerable or if you're squeamish about the savagery of war and the inhumanity of some military cadres. It's a hard, hard read in many ways. For a novel sold in the "crime fiction" section of the local bookstore, it raises far more questions about morality than is ordinary, and there is no happy ending, no relief from the suffering. There are answers, but they only raise more questions.

I'm impressed beyond measure at this gem of a novel and certainly will be tracking down more of the novels of Val McDermid.… (more)