Monday, September 13, 2010

Fever of the bone.

This is the sixth Tony Hill mystery written by Val McDermid. Tony is a psychologist and criminal profiler who is often used by the Bradfield CID and Detective Inspector Carol Jordan and her hotshot major crimes team. The case this time concerns the murder of several young male teens by seemingly the same perp and the team cannot find the connection between them. Tony is persona non grata at the station because the new chief constable thinks he is a waste of money. So he takes a job in the neighboring community of Worcester profiling the murderer of a young teen girl who was a member of a social networking site.
McDermid is very adept at twists and turns in her mysteries and added to the mix is the deep friendship between Carol and Tony-one which has never turned romantic in spite of the chemistry. They each have their own life turmoils to deal with. Carol drinks too much and due to Tony's horrific upbringing, he is afraid that emotionally he is closer to those he profiles than to normal. Unexpectedly and with Carol's help, Tony learns some information about the father who never acknowledged him leading us all to hope that it helps Tony towards emotional healing. The next book should contain some major changes for all the characters.

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