The Last Temptation is Book 3 in the brilliant crime thriller series by Val McDermid featuring Dr. Tony Hill (a psychologist who profiles serial killers) and DCI Carol Jordan (police detective who investigates major crimes).
The first two books (The Mermaids Singing and The Wire in the Blood) were primarily about Carol and Tony teaming up to track and bring to justice two very different (and very sick) serial killers. McDermid does not make the identity of the perpetrator into a mystery, because in these books (and the third) the reader is given first-person insight into the serial killer and follow them as they plan and commit their crimes. Then we can see how well Tony does at discovering the killer’s motivations from their choice of victims. There is also suspense from the question of whether Tony and Carol will be able to capture the criminal before he kills again.
However another feature of McDermid’s books is that during the course of the investigation she often puts the police into extreme peril. This is particularly true in Books 1 and 3 and in both cases Tony is placed in situations which could conceivably lead to his demise. In some sense it is probably progress that McDermid avoids the damsel-in-distress themes by putting the male protagonist in mortal danger instead of the female protagonist. But in my opinion it’s a little too facile a tactic to use to imbue the books with suspense (although we know there are well over a dozen books in the Tony Hill & Carol Jordan series so even though Tony is often in mortal danger at the back of the reader's mind we know it is very unlikely that Hill is actually going to ever be killed in one of these scenarios). In The Last Temptation Carol is also placed in danger and an event occurs which I suspect will have significant impact on their work together in the future.
The key strength of the Hill/Jordan books are their very clever plots as well as their very interesting settings. Each of the first three has been very different, with the common theme being the presence of a very sick and violent serial killer, Tony being placed in extremely dangerous situations and a complicated emotional relationship (even sexual tension) between Tony and Carol. Also, the secondary characters in the series (primarily other police officers assisting in the investigation) are generally well fleshed-out in the books, with their own thoughts and motivations provided to the reader as well.
Overall, The Last Temptation is another strong entry into the British crime thriller/police procedural genre, although with a slightly fantastical plot point involving a doppelgänger around which the entire book revolves it is not as strong as the first two in the Hill/Jordan series. However, I eagerly look forward to reading the rest of the books in the series and am sad that there's only a total of ten published so far.
Title: The Last Temptation.
Author: Val McDermid.
Length: 448 pages.
Original Publisher: Harper Collins.
Date First Published: February 4, 2002.
Date Read: March 24, 2018.
Version Read: Kindle.
GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆ (4.5/5.0).
OVERALL GRADE: A (3.67/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.
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