A car is set ablaze in a lay-by in the rural north of England. Initially, it is thought that it was left there by a couple of carjackers trying to dispose of it, but upon closer inspection, the body of a dead woman is found inside. Police inspector Carol Jordan, head of a newly minted major crimes unit covering several large cities in the north, investigates the crime and with the help of her friend, criminal psychologist Tony Hill, she tries to stop the killer from striking again.
Trust me to pick up the LAST part of a series again, rather than the first. I blame my library’s haphazard English language book selection process.
Val McDermid can be a bit hit or miss for me, though generally she’s more hit than miss. This is no exception; it’s a pretty thrilling read, the pace is high without being ludicrous. And as always, the plot doesn’t hinge on happenstance but on solid detective work. The characters, presumably old favourites of normal people who, unlike me, started at the beginning, not at the end of a series, are mostly relatable. They work hard, but they have private lives too. They stop for lunch or coffee and snacks (the irony that they keep getting donuts isn’t lost on them). The killer is genuinely chilling, too; a bit larger than life, sure, cold and calculating, but also far from the over-the-top psychopath that so many books have.
I’m a member of a couple of crime fiction related groups on social media, and while it’s true that everyone has their own preferences, what irks me is that so many people seem to be asking for fast-paced books with lots of plot twists. I guess that fits into a wider pattern in which we’re simply unable, as a species, to focus on anything that requires us to focus for more than a minute or two. Still, reading this book and comparing it to, say, Frieda McFadden – patron saint of those dratted book groups; every other post seems to be about her – I can’t help but think that people are missing out.
Above all, this novel is believable, something often lacking in the genre. Well, mostly believable. Some things are a little trite, like Stacey Chen, a woman who made millions in IT and is now playing super hacker for the cops, or the fact that Carol’s bosses want to see her fail but still care enough to cover for her; why do people in these books always have superiors that want to see them fail? I’d think if that were the case, they wouldn’t have gotten the job in the first place. There are also two subplots; one about a teenage boy being blackmailed, the other about higher-ups covering up Carol’s drunk driving charge. Neither of them are resolved in a satisfying manner, though once again I can appreciate a novel that portrays teenagers as more than a bundle of knee-jerk responses.
As for the ending: I’m on the fence about that one. I didn’t see it coming, that’s for sure, and since I skipped the previous nine volumes I might not have gotten as attached to the main characters as someone who’s been there from the get-go, but it packs a punch. Whether it’s the good kind or the bad, I haven’t decided. It seems ludicrous, if not downright ridiculous, to resolve the novel this way, but then again it’s an emotional roller coaster ride even for someone who has only just gotten on the train. Suffice to say that if you’ve read and liked the other books in the series: approach with caution.