In her seventh thriller featuring profiler Dr. Tony Hill and Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan, Val McDermid unleashes not one but two serial killers. The first, Jacko Vance, is the duo's worst nightmare come back (after having been caught in The Wire in the Blood); he escapes from prison and is hell bent on, well, retribution. Jordan and Hill have to predict and protect the people, including each other, they feel are most in danger, but Vance seems to be several steps ahead of them. Meanwhile, they also have to hunt another killer doing grisly things to prostitutes. The cases are solved in the end, but Hill and Jordan experience unfathomable loss along the way, and their relationship, as well as their lives, will never be the same.
As usual, McDermid doesn’t flinch from exploring the dark passages of humanity: Vance commits acts so monstrous that readers' stomachs may drop to the floor, like being trapped in a rapidly plunging elevator. But the novel's deft prose, sprinkled with psychological insight and sparks of wit, makes it hard to turn away. McDermid also keeps the pace humming, even with everything that goes on (and there's a lot). The ending is a bit anticlimactic, and the story could probably do with less internal monologue about how much Hill cares for Jordan--a point that is repeatedly and clearly established--but McDermid has thrown such huge obstacles into the already rocky path of her crime-fighting pair that it’ll be interesting to see where they go from here. --Elyse Dinh-McCrilllis, freelance writer/editor, blogging at Pop Culture Nerd