Customer Reviews

Cross and Burn (Unabridged)

This is a book of two halves: half is excellent as we follow the emotional fall-out of the past which has left Carol Jordan and Tony Hill both severely traumatised and alienated from each other and from the police force. In this part of the book, McDermid shows herself to be a sensitive, emotionally-intelligent writer with a fine streak of darkness running through her fictional world.

The other half is a run-of-the-mill psychopathic, misogynist serial-killer plot where, once again, we are shown a man who hates women and wants to re-make them into Stepford wives. The gratuitous sexual violence is sickening, and the plotting feels half-baked: it's obvious from the start who the perpetrator is because the clues are clumsily dropped and, apart from a single red-herring, there's no-one else it could be. The `investigation' is also all a bit pat, and leaves loose ends (the fingerprint on the phone?).

So this is like a very good book and a mediocre `me-too' one crushed together. I can't work out why McDermid falls back into the generic and derivative when she is clearly capable of so much better: a sop to her long-time fans? publisher pressure? who knows. But the contrast between the two halves demonstrate that she is a far better novelist than this book overall shows.

(This review is from an ARC courtesy of the publisher)

..and I havn't read any other reviews.

Last book , Vanishing Point, was the occasional dud but McDermid is back on more familiar ground...perhaps even too familiar given that you probably need to have read the other Tony Hill books to follow the (sub) plot.

It has its flaws (some leaden dialogue, a narrow cast of whodunnit, I'm on page 300.and reckon I know) and not for the first time so far the lesbian count is higher than the body one.

But I don't care..because last night it was 3am before I put the book down and I shall finish it tonight.

Readable page-turning is all I want from a crime thriller..and on form no-one does it better.

It seems to me that there 3 strands to this novel - the serial killer, Carol and Tony's relationship and blinkered investigators. The serial killer plot is fairly standard - a bad man abusing and killing blondes - and, I think, in some ways it is merely a device for Ms McDermid to express the other things she wants to say. She has some good things to say about grief and plenty to say about the pursuit of justice. DCI Fielding's blinkered to approach to policing, evidence and forensics is downright scary and, it has to said, not unprecedented, especially given recent revelations about Hillsborough and the Lawrence investigation. She is also extremely thoughtful on the estrangement between Carol and Tony although I really can't empathise with Carol's position. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and have stayed up late to finish it.

Although I enjoyed this book (as I have all of the Tony Hill books) it really didn't involve him much in solving the crime. Felt like it was written just to explain away how the author will re unite Tony and Carol for the next book.

I love the Tony hill books but this one seemed only to get to the end as quickly as possible the end bringing back 'the team'

i could not wait to buy this book,but after reading it i felt rather let down.i found it to be rather boring to say the least.I could not wait to finish the book not because it was fab but to read another book,why i hear you say did you finish it.well the answer is easy,i did not won,t to waste �8.99 when buying the book.

Return to form for this author,miscreant well telegraphed but not a great worry,enjoyable read,but lay off all the Sapphic talk,becomes a little boring and add nothing to story

DCI Carol Jordan has given in her badge and been replaced with ambitious DCI Fielding. Her 'bagman', also a central character of the novel, is DS Paula MacIntyre from the Major Incident Team. Profile psychologist Tony Hill has become detached from detective work since the Jacko Vance killings of Carol's brother and his wife. Carol blames Tony who accepts his error of judgement. Grief and guilt have driven them apart. Val McDermid describes their individual feelings and predicaments beautifully, reflecting on aspects of their longstanding relationship. A serial killer is now on the loose. His victims bear a remarkable resemblance to Carol Jordan. His sadistic torture of his abducted women does not make for comfortable reading. After a friend of Paula's goes missing, Paula uses her initiative to investigate, crossing her new boss who is blinkered to recognising the obvious and following the suspicions of her colleagues that point to the likely killer who stands out early into the novel. Instead she takes a hard line backed up by forensic evidence that implicates the most unlikely suspect killer.

Earlier, Paula has called on Tony Hill for his help that has ramifications that draw Carol Jordan back into the mess that has occurred to try and unravel the misdirected murder inquiry. This is a thrilling page-turner of a novel. Paula McIntyre is easily warmed to as a character who is a committed professional also struggling with her personal life as opposed to DCI Fielding who is not one for admitting mistakes. The saga of Carol Jordan and Tony Hill may have taken a side step to the psychopathic murderer but their plight seemed better written and of more interest than the horrific crimes he committed. Where Val McDermid takes them from here is another matter. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel as with most of this author's works.
Hardback Review.

Another excellent novel by Val McDermid. I wondered if I would like it when I started reading but I was very quickly hooked, as usual.

I think you can always rely on Val McDermid to produce a reasonable read and that is what I thought this was. Not as good as some of her books but I still enjoyed it.