BOOK REVIEW: Quieter Than Killing (DI Marnie Rome, #4) by Sarah Hilary

The fourth book in the DI Marnie Rome series written by Sarah Hilary is Quieter Than Killing. (I have enjoyed the others, Someone Else's Skin, No Other Darkness, and Tastes Like Fear,) This time the story is about a series of violent attacks of people who have previously been accused or convicted of violent or criminal behavior. DI Rome and her partner DS Noah Jake realize that they are looking for a vigilante, someone who has taken the law into their own hands (and decided to break the law in order to punish others they think deserve it).

As they try to find the vigilante, Rome and Jake are also faced with the kidnapping of the 10-year-old so of a jailhouse informant as well as the trashing of the house where Rome’s parents were murdered by her adopted brother, Stephen Keele, who has been moved to an adult prison now that he’s over 18.

There are multiple strengths in these Sarah Hilary mystery thrillers and many of these strengths appear in Quieter Than Killing.
First among these is the depiction of Marnie as a strong female protagonist, working in a predominantly male environment of a police department that solves major crimes in London. Another strong feature of these books is the inclusion of Noah as an openly gay, Black police officer who serves as her deputy. (There are multiple references to how good looking Noah is, as well as his boyfriend Dan, but this doesn’t mean that he’s not subject to both racism and homophobia while doing his job.) Hilary does an excellent job of fleshing out many of the characters in these books, especially in the ways she provides enough information to give the reader insight into their psyches, this includes the criminals and the police officers who try to catch them. One other compelling aspect of the Marnie Rome books is the backstory of Marnie and Noah, and as the books have progressed, there have been developments in how these characters have dealt with and adapted to changes.

I would definitely place these books in the genre of psychological thriller. In Quieter Than Killing, like in her other books, the author presents the crimes (and the criminals) in such a way that their psychologies are revealed and this has quite a memorable impact on the reader. I recommend this book and the others in the series (you don’t have to read them in sequence but why wouldn’t you?) to people who like the work of Jane Casey and Val McDermid, who are other British mystery authors with female protagonists in their books.

Title: Quieter Than Killing (DI Marnie Rome, #4).
Author: Sarah Hilary.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 432 pages.
Publisher: Headline.
Date Published: March 19, 2017.
Date Read: February 19, 2022.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Cross and Burn (Tony Hill / Carl Jordan, #8) by Val McDermid

Cross and Burn is the eighth installment in the British police procedural crime thriller series written by Val McDermid featuring psychological profiler Dr. Tony Hill and Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan set in the Manchester suburbs of Bradfield in the north of England. This series is one of the most exciting and compelling entries in the multiple genres that it occupies (which include suspense thriller, British police procedural, and murder mystery). It is also one of the rare series that has both a male and female lead in a primarily non-romantic relationship.

I hadn’t read one of McDermid’s books in a while so I had forgotten about one of the most effective aspects of her books, which is the inclusion of first-person perspectives of future crime victims. By doing this, she connects the reader to the characters and increases the impact of their deaths at the hands of the homicidal psychopaths that tend to populate her books. It’s also surprising because many authors generally use first-person mode to indicate important characters who may be placed in extreme peril and ultimately survive, but McDermid seems to be unafraid of killing off these characters. It's not like they always die or always survive, so the uncertainty ratchets up the suspense in the reader.

As I have said before, one of the added pleasures of reading a long-running series in order that have a repeated primary protagonist (like Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan, Stephen Booth’s Cooper & Fry, Peter Robinson’s Alan Banks or Peter James’ Roy Grace, for example) is the deepening relationship the reader has with the characters due to increased familiarity via repetition. In the Hill & Jordan series, the two have gone through a lot together, especially in the previous book’s The Retribution which resulted in the horrendous death of Carole Jordan’s only brother and his female partner. This happened as a direct consequence of her and Tony’s work of hunting and capturing a serial killer (who escaped and went on a killing spree). It causes Carol to (irrationally) blame Tony for his inability to realize that once the serial killer had escaped that his revenge might have included her family, quit her job as a police officer, and cut off all contact with Tony and her former colleagues in the Bradfield Metropolitan police department.

In addition to including first-person perspectives of victims McDermid often includes first-person perspectives of the perpetrator as well. This is something other suspense thriller authors do as well, but generally not as cleverly as she does. In Cross and Burn, the reader watches with horror while a deranged male chauvinist targets women who happen to resemble Carol Jordan, capturing them, making them play out his twisted vision of a “perfect subservient wife” and then eventually killing them when they fail to meet his insane “standards.” Through back channels Tony is brought in to help with the case by DI Paula McIntyre when she’s approached for help by the teenage son of a missing woman who works in the same hospital as her wife. For some reason Paula’s new boss decides that circumstantial evidence tying Tony to one of the disappearances of a woman later found dead means that he is likely the serial killer the Bradfield police are looking for. The only good outcome of this bizarre development is that it gets Carol out of her mourning funk enough to try and help Tony fight the charges.

Another one of the notable features of McDermid’s books are the (sometimes gory) scenes of violence and torture. She doesn’t shy away from the depiction of the horrors that violent crimes, both physical and psychological, can produce. Despite this, her books are always entertaining, well-plotted and memorable. In fact, overall Cross and Burn is an example of a master working at the height of her craft, cementing her status as one of the best in the business by creating another spine-chilling entry in her long running series.

Title: Cross and Burn (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, #8).
Author: Val McDermid.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 438 pages.
Publisher: Mariner Books.
Date Published:  October 22, 2013.
Date Read: October 8, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Black Dog (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry, #1) by Stephen Booth

Black Dog is the first book in a series of British police procedural, crime thrillers written by Stephen Booth starring Ben Cooper and Diane Fry, set in the Peak District of Northern England near Manchester. Generally referred to as the Cooper & Fry series, I discovered the book as it was recommended to me by the website FantasticFiction, for readers who also like Stuart MacBride and Val McDermid (which I definitely do).

The British police procedural, crime thriller is a (very) well-populated genre I am discovering. So my tastes have become more discerning as I read more of them. I have read all of Ian Rankin's work, as well as the mysteries written by Peter Robinson, Tana French, and Agatha Christie. I've come to realize that, generally, I prefer books that feature at least one female protagonist (or are written by a female author). I think it’s probably as a gay Black male I don’t really connect with seeing toxic masculinity in my fiction and I prefer to read stories featuring characters that share experiences similar to mine, i.e. trying to succeed professionally in settings where you’re under-represented.

I was pleasantly surprised by how engaging Black Dog, the first book in the Cooper & Fry series, is. The main mystery is built around the disappearance and (inevitable) demise of a 15-year-old girl who is the daughter of the nouveau riche couple who own the biggest house in the Edendale area. However, as with all good books in the mystery genre, it’s not the central case that’s important but it's the people working on the case who are. Ben Cooper is a young, handsome, local “golden boy” who is a Detective Constable with a bright future and apparent rapid promotion ahead of him, despite his police father having been killed in the line of duty a mere 2 years before, leading to the psychological breakdown of his mother. Diane Fry is also a young Detective Constable who has recently transferred to the E-division police force after a traumatic event which she’s determined not to let slow her progress on the fast track to professional success in the police. They are polar opposites; Cooper is instinctive, well-liked by his colleagues and generally attuned to the sensibilities and sensitivities of the locals. Fry, on the other hand, is an outsider, perceived as a nervy, ambitious woman seeking to rise in the ranks by taking advantage of any situation to get noticed and advance her career. Somehow the two are paired together and sparks fly. There is definitely NOT sexual tension between the two, but there is professional rivalry (and perhaps personal antipathy), especially when Cooper realizes that Fry is much more likely to get the next Detective Sergeant promotion after his family problems start to negatively impact his job performance.

The details of the mystery in Black Dog are quite interesting, with a surplus of suspects and a large number of red herrings thrown at the reader. Even when the perpetrator was basically reduced to a cast of 3, I didn’t pick the correct person responsible for the crimes. The book is quite suspenseful and does a good job of slowly revealing different aspects of the personality traits of both Cooper and Fry which make me very interested to see how their interactions develop in future books. The series is quite substantial (almost 18 books at this writing) and I’m a bit surprised it doesn’t appear to have the same level of popularity and renown as similar books in this genre such as the Tony Hill & Carol Jordan series by Val McDermid or the Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James series by Deborah Crombie. I think the reason may be because it doesn’t appear as if there’s a romantic relationship between the two lead characters (at least so far). The setting of the books is also somewhat unusual, a rural, sparsely populated, mountainous area (called the Peak Pike District) that is an actual tourist attraction. The supporting characters are not particularly diverse, but when there are two main characters who are both nuanced and well-drawn, that can sustain and fuel my interest in reading more books in the series, which I definitely intend to do.

Title: Black Dog.
Author: Stephen Booth.
Pages: 480 pages (paperback).
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: October 30, 2001.
Date Read: November 6, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo

Sworn to Silence is the first book in the Chief Kate Burkholder series by Linda Castillo. This book was brought to my attention by FantasyFaction’s recommendation service by connecting it to other books I had previously read (I think it was to one of the Karin Slaughter books). The Kate Burkholder books are set in Northern Ohio, in Amish country, and the eponymous character is a former member of the local Amish community of Painter’s Creek, a town of under 5,000 inhabitants. Kate speaks Pennsylvania Dutch and is the small town’s chief of police. However Painter’s Creek’s chief law enforcement officer is hiding a pretty dramatic secret in her past involving the (probably !?) justified killing of a guy who raped her as a teenager. The fact that a series of gruesome murders ended soon after those events is even more important to the plot of Sworn to Silence than Kate’s secret because now the murders have resumed after a 15-year hiatus and Kate is perplexed to figure out how the events of her tormented past and the bloody present are linked.

It’s a great premise and Kate is an interesting combination of discrepancies. A female police chief of a small town, a former member of a local religious community who has been formally excommunicated from interacting with her own family members who live nearby. The primary strengths of this book are Kate and the impressively rapid pace of the plot. After no activity for 15 years, three horribly mutilated bodies are discovered in less than a week. Another minor strength is the inclusion of a Black male sidekick (called “Glock) who has a good professional relationship with Kate. One of my qualms about even starting the Burkholder series was my belief that the lack of diversity due to the setting would make it hard for me to connect with the characters and Glock helped assuage those concerns.

The primary weakness of the book is the excessively gory nature of the crimes and the inclusion of a romantic element for Kate both of which seems problematic and gratuitous. In fact, Kate herself is not without issues. She displays bad judgment multiple times and its hard to be sympathetic to her “might makes right” policing philosophy combined with a penchant for expediency over compliance. I’m not completely convinced I’ll continue reading other books in the series, despite the fact that it features a female protagonist and strong, diverse set of supporting characters (these are usually strong sources of my interest in a series). The placing of Kate herself in extreme danger towards the end of the book as a tool to increase the level of suspense is not a good sign, in my opinion. I prefer authors (like Val McDermid) who use other devices to successfully enthrall the reader of suspense thriller mysteries.

Overall I’d say Sworn to Silence is a strong first entry in a series that other aficionados of the genre may enjoy if they do not have as many particular preferences and atypical aversions as I do to some of the book’s elements.

Title: Sworn to Silence (Kate Burkholder, #1)
Author: Linda Castillo.
Pages: 384.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: April 1, 2010.
Date Read: July 1, 2014.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Looking Good Dead (DSI Roy Grace, #2) by Peter James

Looking Good Dead is the second book in author Peter James’ series of best-selling, long-running, British police procedural, suspense thrillers featuring Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, set in the environs of Brighton and Hove. I was quite impressed with the premise and the execution of the first book, Dead Simple, and have been looking forward to continuing the series.

The second book is clearly set in a time period after the first but I think one could enjoy them both reading them in either order. DSI Grace (or “Roy” as he prefers) is an intriguing character and a good leader of an interesting team of fellow officers. One of the things I constantly repeat in my reviews of books in the mystery/thriller/police procedural genre is a significant fraction of my enjoyment of these books is in the interactions between the main character/protagonist and the supporting characters. His best friend and colleague is Detective Sergeant Glenn Branson, a younger, hip, muscular Black guy and there are multiple women with personalities not rooted in their physical appearances in the book as well. These are significant strengths in my opinion.

Grace’s personal circumstances are somewhat tragic; his wife Sandy disappeared more than nine years ago on his 30th birthday and he really hasn’t moved on (he still has her slippers and personal items in his/their bedroom!). The Sandy situation doesn’t get resolved in this book (from inadvertent Google searches it seems like she does show up in a future book but it’s not good news). However, Roy does have positive developments in his romantic life which portends this will be a smaller element in the future.

The strongest aspect of both books by James that I have read so far are the premise/set up of the story and the pacing of the plot. In Looking Good Dead the premise is that a “regular bloke” named Tom Bryce has his life ruined by picking up a CD some idiot leaves on his commuter train and when Toom puts it into his computer he witnesses a live snuff film (a woman being murdered on camera for the sick pleasure of voyeurs). It takes awhile for Grace’s team to connect the headless dead body they have found in a local field with the murder Tom Bryce inadvertently saw on his computer. By the time they do we have learned more about the producers of the snuff film as well as the existence of other victims and Tom's life is starting to unravel as the criminals have discovered Tom's unauthorized access to their website.

The primary narrative tension in Looking Good Dead is whether Roy and the police will find the perpetrators before the evildoers punish Tim and his family for exposing their activities. Roy has a problematic penchant for the supernatural but here it plays an almost minimal role in the story, although one of the mediums he interacts with gives Roy some information which could be considered useful.

Overall, I’d say Looking Good Dead is a top-notch suspense thriller and satisfying British police procedural. For people who have appreciated following the cerebral crime-solving of Peter Robinson’s DCI Alan Banks or the psychological thrills of Val McDermid’s Carol Jordan/Tony Hill, Peter James’s Roy Grace is a name you should add to your “to-be-read” list!

Title: Looking Good Dead
Author: Peter James.
Length: 406 pages.
Publisher: MacMillan.
Date Published: 2006.
Date Read: September 21, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★ (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Retribution by Val Mcermid

The Retribution is the seventh book in Val McDermid’s long-running, excellent series of police procedural, mystery-thriller novels featuring DCI Carol Jordan and Dr. Tony Hill, primarily set in the fictional city of Bradfield in Northern England. Hill is a criminal psychological profiler who uses his expertise to assist the police in tracking down lawbreakers (usually serial killers) by extrapolating information about the psychology and motivations of the perpetrators from the nature of their crimes and crime scenes. DCI Jordan leads the Major Incident Team (MIT), a handpicked collection of police officers with special skills (like lucrative computer hacking skills used for crime-fighting instead of profit) who often get results on cases that resist resolution by typical police methods.

The Retribution is centered around two problematic crime sprees. The first is a now-familiar series of horrific murders of “working girls” in the Temple Fields (red light/gay ghetto) section of downtown Bradfield. Each of the three killings is quite different from each other but each victim has the word “mine” tattooed somewhere on the corpse. It takes awhile for the police to recognize there’s only one killer involved because the bodies are in such variable states of intactness when they are discovered. Eventually the police do hand the case over to MIT. However, it will likely be the unit’s last case. Carol’s new boss has decided that having a cadre of specialized officers who work on the hardest cases and get good results is “too expensive” so she’s taken a DCI job at West Mercia and her team’s officers will likely be forced join the regular detective rotation if they stay in Bradfield. West Mercia, not coincidentally, happens to be near where Tony has recently moved into a huge mansion he inherited from his late estranged father in Fever of the Bone.

The second crime spree featured in The Retribution is significantly more serious. It involves one of the key villains from Wire in the Blood, one of the earlier, excellent entries in the Hill-Jordan series, Jacko Vance. Jacko was a television celebrity, one of the most recognizable faces in England when a member of Tony’s "baby profilers" (a group of police officers whom Tony was training to use his psychological techniques to suss out criminal motives) realized that Vance was a likely suspect in the disappearance of multiple teenage girls. Jacko killed the officer horribly just because he could, not because he was in serious danger of being revealed by her, but this event was the break that Tony and Carol needed to realize that Jacko was a serial killer. Now it’s many years later and Jacko manages to escape prison and he has a plan to seek retribution on the people that forced him to lose a dozen years of his life in prison. Jacko was assisted by a guy who never believed in his guilt to set Jacko up with a safe house, surveillance on his potential targets and ways and means to conduct his revenge. Of course, the first thing Jacko does when he’s in the safe house is stick a knife in his benefactor. And then he begins to successfully get his retribution on those who he thinks wronged him, which includes Carol and Tony. But, because he doesn’t attack them directly, but instead targets people and things near and dear to them, it takes awhile for Tony to figure out where Jacko will strike next and by then irreparable harm has occurred to those they love.

McDermid is rightly called the Queen of Crime for a reason. She is a Master at ratcheting up the level of suspense as one reads more and more of the book. One of her strengths is the clever way she doles out information to the reader about her characters and their motivations and actions. For example, we get a lot of first-person perspective from Jacko in The Retribution, so the reader can only watch with horror as we see him successfully commit his crimes while simultaneously seeing his pursuers struggle to even begin figuring out what’s going on. Additionally, McDermid does an incredible job at creating characters whose motivations are clearly described, leading to significant relationships. Access to the inner monologue of Tony and Carol as well as several of the secondary characters is a clear strength of the series.

Of course, the most significant relationship in these books is the one between Carol and Tony. Although it is not romantic, it is both more and less significant than a romantic relationship. For Tony, it is the most important relationship in his life. For Carol, Tony is her most important professional relationship, but she has more family support. The events of The Retribution are devastating to their connection, and one of the reasons to read the next book is to find out if their relationship survives and to read what happens next.

Overall, The Retribution is one of the most significant entries in the series, although I would not say it is one of the best. It definitely possesses McDermid’s now-familiar heart-pounding suspense, but both mysteries are not really that complicated since the who-dunnit aspect is minimal. (We know Jacko is one of them, and the second one is revealed pretty quickly. However in both cases it is the chase to see how/when/if the police can capture the perpetrator before they kill even more people which is the primary source of the suspense.)

The most memorable element is the sudden rupture in the Hill-Jordan relationship, but this change is surprisingly not well motivated and could be argued that it comes out of nowhere. Regardless, things will be different in the future for both of them, and I look forward to reading the subsequent books to find out what happens!

Title: The Retribution.
Author: Val McDermid.
Paperback: 413 pages.
Publisher: Little Brown.
Date Published: September 1, 2011.
Date Read: August 22, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆ (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

Fever of the Bone (Tony Hill/Carol Jordan, #6) by Val McDermid

SUMMARY REVIEW Another excellent thriller featuring Tony Hill & Carol Jordan solving crimes and catching serial killers in the north of England. Fever of the Bone is the sixth entry in Val McDermid’s police procedural/murder mystery series starring DCI Carol Jordan and psychologist profiler Tony Hill. I love the way McDermid can quickly place the reader into a scene to sympathize with a character, even if we know that person will probably become the next victim of a sordid serial killer. She uses this to great effect to produce narrative tension and provide suspense to the reader. Is this person going to become the next victim? Or will they survive? To me, this is a clear example of the author not taking advantage of the too-easy trope of putting their detective in harm's way as a tool for causing the reader to be invested in what happens. McDermid is a master, she has a whole lotta other tricks up her sleeve! In Fever of the Bone the relationship between Jordan and Hill is as complicated as ever. This time the crime is not as gruesome as McDermid’s typically horrific fare but the hunt for the killer is as gripping as ever. Teenagers are being stalked online and then abducted, drugged, suffocated and sexually mutilated. McDermid lets us experience the thoughts and hopes of several of the kids before they meet the killer, and this is extremely effective at engrossing the reader. As with most murder mystery/police procedural series that have recurring characters, part of the enjoyment of the book is not only reading how (or whether) they will catch the culprit, but learning more about these characters and seeing what new developments happen to them and how they react to them as time goes by and the events in subsequent books occur. In the case of Carol Jordan, she has a new boss who is skeptical that her specialized team is worth the extra money it takes to work with a specialized profiler like Dr. Tony Hill. And he’s not sure the difficult (often cold) cases they solve are worth the effort it takes. For Tony, he’s still coming to terms with the fact that he has received a huge inheritance from a father he thought had abandoned him to the abuse and deprivations of his psychopathic mother. There’s also some interesting developments with the important secondary characters in the series. In Fever of the Bone, some clarity is provided about the romantic tension between Carol and Tony, which is refreshing (and somewhat surprising, considering it has previously been a feature of the narrative heft of the books). Overall, Fever of the Bone is a median entry in this always excellent series featuring Tony Hill & Carol Jordan solving crimes and catching serial killers in the north of England. This time I was able to guess some of the connections between the crimes but I didn’t figure out the eventual perpetrator before Tony, but there definitely were enough clues to do so. I can’t wait to see what happens next in these books, especially since in The Retribution the series’ most notorious villain will play a prominent role!

Title: Fever of the Bone.
Author: Val McDermid.
Paperback: 432 pages.
Publisher: Little, Brown.
Date Published: 2009.
Date Read: August 1, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Every Dead Thing Charlie Parker, #1) by John Connolly

Every Dead Thing is the first book by John Connolly that I have read, and the first book in his apparently very popular Charlie Parker series. I am always looking for new series and so I was interested in reading this book and checking out Connolly's work, which has relatively high ratings on Goodreads and is well-established. However, I am not completely sure how many more in the series I will read (for reasons I detail below).

One thing I am learning as I read more books in the mystery/thriller/suspense/crime genre is how many different kinds of books there are, and thus I can be more discerning (read: picky!) in the books and series I decide to invest my time in consuming. My sweet spot is generally well-paced police procedurals (often set in Britain) where the plot (often suspenseful) revolves around intriguing mysteries or crimes (not always murders) being investigated by complex, well-developed characters (with diverse and interesting supporting characters). Authors whose work I have generally liked include Peter Robinson's DCI Alan Banks, Ian Rankin's DI John Rebus, Karin Slaughter's Will Trent, Val McDermid's Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series, Stuart MacBride's Logan McRae and (of course) Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad and Louise Penny's Henri Gamache series.

 I was a little upset to discover that the Charlie Parker series is in a sub-genre known as a supernatural crime thriller. The first book doesn't go too far in that direction. Generally I am not a fan of supernatural elements, which is why I haven't usually been a fan of Stephen King, but the books I have read of his (The Institute, The Outsider, the Mr. Mercedes trilogy) have all been excellent. However I have heard things get spookier as the series goes on (Book 17 has been published). Book 1, Every Dead Thing, has an extremely high body count and is suffused with violence throughout. It begins with the ritualistic murder of Parker's wife and kids and ends with... (just kidding I don't want to spoil it!).

Parker is an interestingly flawed character (a former police officer whose family was murdered who is willing and able to use his network of contacts to take the law into his own hands) and the setting is New York City, which is also a plus. However one of the main reasons I did not summarily DNF the book about 40% in (after Parker basically solves the initial mystery of a missing girl he was hired to find) was the surprising inclusion of an openly gay, interracial criminal couple named Angel (burglar/thief) and Louis (assassin/hit man). If they play a significant role in the later books I wil probably give the Charlie Parker series a closer look. It's a huge plus to me that the supporting characters are diverse and interesting. And Connolly's prose is definitely well above average for your regular mystery writer. However, most of the mystery/thrillers that I really enjoy either have major characters who are female (Maeve Kerrigan, Sara Linton, Carol Jordan, Siobhan Clarke, Roberta Steel) are written by female authors (Tana French, Karin Slaughter, Val Mcdermid, Jane Casey, etc) but I'm definitely not a fan of romance (Karin Slaughter's Will Trent series gets the balance perfectly). My ultimate series would be a series with a female lead detective with a gay male sidekick (which is exactly what the DI Marnie Rome series by Sarah Hillary is but so far I haven't been impressed by the first two book in the series, Someone Else's Skin and No Other Darkness.

 I realize most of this review of Every Dead Thing has been my musing about the mystery/crime/thriller genre in general. That tends to happen when I get introduced to a new author and I try to compare the new work into my past experiences with the genre. My overall view of Every Dead Thing is that I would say it is a well-written, extremely violent and action-packed story led by a troubled main character and peopled with interesting supporting characters whom I suspect I will seek out in the (far) future.

Title: Every Dead Thing.
Author: John Connolly.
Paperback: 467 pages.
Publisher: Pocket Books.
Date Published: July 1, 2000.
Date Read: March 28, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Raven Black (Shetland Islands, #1) by Ann Cleeves

This is the first book in Ann Cleeves’ Shetland Islands series starring Inspector Jimmy Perez. The Shetland Islands are remote, sparsely populated islands north of Scotland and west of Norway that are part of the United Kingdom.

Raven Black begins with the discovery of a dead teenaged girl named Catherine. Almost a decade earlier another young girl named Catriona had disappeared and her body was never found. In both cases, a mentally challenged bachelor named Magnus Tait had been one of the last people to see the victim. Many people on the islands shunned him and there was a widespread belief he had gotten away with murder because no body had been found. When Catherine’s body is found they expect him to be arrested immediately.

Inspector Jimmy Perez is not so sure. The cases have some similarities but a lot of differences also. Both girls were parts of families who had moved to the Shetlands from “down south.” Both girls were considered independent and “high spirited.” Catherine was considered very intelligent by her teachers and popular in school. Ann Cleeves tells the story using first-person accounts from very many characters, including Catherine, her best friend Sally, Jimmy, Magnus and several others.

Raven Black is an atmospheric, psychological thriller about the effects of a violent crime in a very small community where everyone knows everything about their neighbors. However, newcomers arrive fairly often and try (and often fail) to be integrated into the community. Jimmy himself is from the community and went to the same schools as the murder victims but his family is from an even more remote island and they are clamoring for him to come home and stop this “police foolishness.”

The killer of the two girls (and the abductor of a third girl, another strong-willed outsider whose name begins with C) is revealed at the end, and it came as a complete and utter shock to me. That’s not that unusual as murder mystery novels go. However I think to maintain my interest in a series I need to be invested in the main character/detective and be intrigued/interested/amused by their sidekicks/colleagues. Jimmy Perez basically works alone. The setting of the book, in this remote small community IS the companion character. Sometimes if the setting is very unfamiliar that can provide a source of interest. Also one can be interested in a setting which is also very familiar. 

Unfortunately, Raven Black did not fully engage my interest. I’m somewhat surprised by this because I know the Shetland Islands mysteries have been adapted into a very popular BBC TV series. However, I doubt I’ll be continuing. There are so many other detective series I’m interested in making progress on, like Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan, Val McDermid’s Tony Hill/Carol Jordan and (of course) Stuart MacBride’s Logan McRae. Life’s too short to wade through books one does not connect with.

Title: Raven Black.
Author: Ann Cleeves.
Paperback: 374 pages.
Publisher: Minotaur Books.
Date Published: May 29, 2007.
Date Read: September 30, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.33/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B.
WRITING: B+.

BOOK REVIEW: Beneath the Bleeding (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, #5) by Val McDermid

Beneath the Bleeding is another brilliant and thrilling police procedural murder mystery from Val McDermid featuring psychologist Dr. Tony Hill and police detective Carol Jordan set in Northern England. This book is the 5th in this series at the core of which is the relationship between Carol and Tony. They have never been lovers but they are almost certainly in love with each other; however, circumstances make it unlikely they will ever “go there.” Regardless, the two work well together and have been successful in the past catching murders (especially serial killers). Tony works as a profiler for the Bradfield Police Department where Carol is a DCI (Detective Chief Inspector).

In  Beneath the Bleeding Tony is (again) physically impaired, this time in the very first scene is attacked by a deranged man with an axe and spends most of the plot in a hospital bed or strenuously moving about on crutches. Meanwhile, the first body discovered is that of a popular young star footballer who has been poisoned by ricin. While the BPD is trying to solve this high-profile case they are rattled and sidetracked by an extravagant act of mass murder which leads to a counter terrorism center (CTC) team descending on Bradfield to take over the investigation, brusquely displacing BPD in the process.

Another poisoning death that coincided with the alleged terrorist event and Tony’s theory about the poisoner’s motives that Carol and others had previously found ludicrous starts to gain traction. He also participates in Carol’s mutinous investigation of the alleged suicide bomber. An effective feature of McDermid’s books is that she often depicts the acts of the perpetrator from their perspective, so the reader has a (somewhat skewed) view of their motives while the suspense builds as we wonder if, when and how the police will be able to suss out.

We learn more about Tony in this book, being introduced to his mother, who is simply a horrifying individual and we get some important background on Tony’s abusive upbringing that may explain his current psychological tics.

Overall, Beneath the Bleeding is another very strong entry in the Hill/Jordan series. There is further development of the secondary characters in this book which engages the reader by strengthening our interest in and involvement with them. One caveat I would have with this book is that Tony plays an outsized role in the resolution of both mysteries. Also, I was unhappy that the motivation of one of the killers is depicted in a way that is clearly rooted in homophobia (and HIV stigma); this was quite unexpected from a book written by an openly lesbian author.

Title: Beneath the Bleeding.
Author: Val McDermid.
Paperback: 484 pages.
Publisher: HarperCollins.
Date Published: September 1, 2009.
Date Read: April 1, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner

Missing, Presumed is the first book in the Detective Sargeant Manon Bradshaw series by Susie Steiner. This is a British police procedural murder mystery; if you like the work of Peter Robinson, Deborah Crombie, Val McDermid or Adrian Mckinty I suspect you'll like this. I wouldn't say she's in Tana French's league but I think it's possible she could get there. Missing, Presumed is a strong debut (and as I have said before, oftentimes the first book in a series is not the best) so it is notable how good the first entry is. The story is about a missing blonde white woman named Edith Hinds whose parents regularly socialize with the Home Secretary (chief law enforcement officer of the country, basically the American equivalent of the Attorney General). The plot takes a surprisingly sapphic turn as bodies start showing up during the missing persons investigation, however none of the bodies are of the missing girl. There are other surprises I did not see coming that make this book a satisfying read. DS Manon Bradshaw is quite an interesting character as the protagonist. She has numerous bad habits and is more than a bit of an asshole. But she also is incredibly generous (by the end of the book). Along with DS Bradshaw we get first person accounts from other members of the police team (DC Davy Walker, DI Harriet Harper) as well as from the mother of the missing girl (Miriam Hinds). The fact that the main character is a 39-year-old single female who is desperately lonely is an interesting aspect of the book which may put off some but to me (favorably) differentiated Missing, Presumed from other books in the same genre. (I received this book from NetGalley in return for an objective review.) Title: Missing, Presumed. Author: Susie Steiner. Paperback: 400 pages. Publisher: The Borough Press. Date Published: February 25, 2016. Date Read: January 15, 2017. GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0). OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0). PLOT: A-. IMAGERY: B+. IMPACT: A-. WRITING: B+.

BOOK REVIEW: Jar City by Arnaldur Indriðason

Jar City is the first book by Arnaldur Indriðason that I have read. I was mostly interested in reading it because it’s set in Reykjavik, and ever since the city was put on the map fro the famous World Chess Championship between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer in 1972 I have been interested in it. I visited Reykjavik this year for a week to celebrate my birthday in May 2018. Thus it was sorta fun to read place names that were somewhat familiar in Jar City. 

However it turned out that Jar City the book was not that interesting to me in the end. I have a theory that quality of mystery books depends on a number of factors: the quality of the characterization of the protagonist/detective, the interesting features of the sidekicks, the compelling nature of the setting and the intricacy of the puzzle/mystery. 

Here the strongest aspect of Jar City is the puzzle. The protagonist is Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson, who is somewhat interesting but also a bit of a misanthropic and unattractive character. This is not necessarily a deal breaker for me to enjoy a mystery book, since one could also describe popular mystery characters like Inspector John Rebus by Ian Rankin. The main problem with Jar City is with the sidekicks, who are completely uninteresting to me. One  is a woman named Elinborg and a guy named Sigurður Óli. We don't get very much (if any) of the internal monologue of either of these supporting characters, and it's not even very clear what Erlendur thinks of either of his partners. One would think that the setting (Reykjavik) would be compelling but in the end the homogeneous and exotic nature of the setting is not as interesting as I had originally expected when I discovered the books existed. 

Although Jar City is technically not the first book in the Inspector Erlendur series, it is the first book in the English translation order of the books. It's also often true the first book in a mystery series is often not the author's best work. (This is definitely true of Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson and Patricia Cornwell, just to name a few.)

I have to add that the one aspect of the first book that may get me to read the future entries is Elendur’s relationship with his pregnant, drug-addicted daughter Eva Lind. I’m definitely curious about what happens to her character but there are many other series that I would rather make progress on first (Val McDermid's Tony Hill/Carol Jordan and Stuart MacBride's DS Logan McRae immediately come to mind, for instance).

Title: Jar City (Inspector Erlendur, #3).
Author: Arnaldur Indriðason.
Paperback: 275 pages.
Publisher: Minotaur Books.
Date Published: October 1, 2005.
Date Read: July 29, 2018.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★☆☆  (3.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B (3.0/4.0).

PLOT: B.
IMAGERY: B.
IMPACT: C.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Torment of Others (Tony Hill/Carol Jordan, #4) by Val McDermid

The Torment of Others is the fourth book in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series written by Val McDermid. The main characters are recovering from the harrowing events of Book 3 (The Last Temptation). In addition to dealing with those after effects, Carol and Tony have two (unrelated) major crimes to solve in this book. 

DCI Jordan is brought in to run a new special squad in Bradfield and immediately has to deal with someone who is killing prostitutes in a most horrible way (it involves dildos, handcuff and razorblades!) which is an identical method to four murders that had occurred nearly two years before and whose perpetrator had been supposedly identified, found, convicted and locked up in the looney bin. In addition, two young boys (under 10) have gone missing  a few weeks before the events at the beginning of the book and the police have no leads on finding them and (of course) are considering them as homicide cases, not just kidnappings. 

Dr. Tony Hill is in yet another professional setting, this time as a consulting psychologist at a local mental hospital in Bradfield. Of course, he is treating the 4-time convicted murderer and trying to discover his patient’s connection to the new crimes.

Tony and Carol work together to solve the crimes but their relationship is complicated by a handsome geologist(!!) who gets involved with Carol as well as a theory of the case that Tony develops that he feels he can’t reveal to her.

This fourth entry into the Hill/Jordan series was as full of high-pitched suspense as the previous books but I think it also had more obvious flaws than previous books by McDermid. First, there’s a scenario depicted that ends up with a female police officer (who is working undercover) getting into extreme danger and I just didn’t believe that a trained officer would behave that way in the situation (they let themselves be handcuffed to a bed because they think they are still under surveillance unaware the video/audio connection has been severed). Second, the reveal of the perpetrator of the prostitute murders and how they were able to copy the killing method is done somewhat suddenly (I thought) but maybe that’s because I didn’t figure out who the criminal was before the police did. (In general, I would say the ability of a mystery writer to extend the suspense by delaying the revelation of the perpetrator is a strength of a mystery novel but for some reason in this instance it felt off to me but in hindsight a fair amount of clues that post facto appear obvious were given by the author.) Third, there really is no connection between the pedophile murder-kidnappings and the prostitute killers in the end so the reason they are both included in the same book is unclear, except maybe to put extra stress on Carol and Tony's relationship.

Overall, despite some flaws in this entry, the core story involving Tony and Carol is very strong and definitely a reason to read this book as well as the earlier entries in this series of high-quality, suspenseful police-procedural crime thrillers. I look forward to reading Beneath the Bleeding.

FOUR STARS.

Title: The Torment of Others.
Author: Val McDermid.
Length: 448 pages.
Original Publisher: Harper Collins.
Date First Published: February 4, 2002.
Date Read: May 12, 2018.
Version Read: Kindle.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: B+.

BOOK REVIEW: The Last Temptation (Tony Hill/Carol Jordan, #3) by Val McDermid

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.