I had never heard of Val McDermid before reading one of the Stieg Larsson books, and a scene where Mikael Blomqvist sits down and cracks one open. I took that as an endorsement. So this is the first of her I've read, and it has many flaws. The story itself isn't terrible, though quite farfetched (someone furious at the media attention given psychological profilers is killing crime novelists, whom he/she blames for generating the hoopla). There seemed to be a whole bunch of murders at the outset. It took me a few chapters to realize that all of the murders in italics were excerpts from crime novels which are then replicated by the killer. Once I understood what the deal was, reading was facilitated.The flaws: a very annoying overreliance on the pluperfect tense. Isn't there some way around this? Surely it is possible to visit moments in a character's past without resorting wholescale to a string of she'd, he'd, she'd, he'd, they'd, she'd, he'd, she'd, she'd, she'd, she'd.There are too many words. Surely by 2000 one could write about computers without invoking clunky phrases like "electronic filing cabinet" and "her favourite metasearch engine, which combed the vast virtuality of the worldwide web at her command." I hope the next serial killer isn't angry at crime novelists who use bloated technology descriptions. "Where can I find Drew Shand?" types profiler Fiona Cameron into her metasearch engine, because apparently her metasearch engine needs a complete sentence.Smiling: I've noticed in weak writing that characters are always smiling. Oh, there may be variations - "a tiny, tight smile"; "a wry smile"; "managed a frail smile"; and tons of wide grins. I don't think people smile this much in real life, unless they're phony fakers or Tom Cruise. Writers make characters smile and laugh when they don't trust their dialogue to show us what the mood is. The protagonist, Dr. Fiona Cameron, is completely uninteresting. She feels guilty for surviving the rape and murder of her younger sister years ago: boring. She became a profiler in order to redeem herself: Very boring. She has a perfect, perfectly annoying relationship with her lover, crime novelist Kit Martin. Kit is always rubbing his hands over his bald scalp, and they're always gettin' it on or talking about how much they'd like to get it on. Criminally boring. "Kit had watched Fiona walk up the hill from San Tomas, admiring her smooth stride and the way the cut of her trousers gave emphasis to the gentle swell of her hips. I am a lucky bastard, he congratulated himself, luxuriating briefly in the memory of their leisurely morning in bed." Smooth stride? Trousers? Gentle swell? Could that be any less sexy? I hope it's not a hernia. Why don't these two get married, anyway? I guess Fiona doesn't care about having legal claim to any of Kit's assets from all his bestselling crime novels, but maybe she should take a lesson from Stieg Larsson's lover.
Killing the Shadows, by Val McDermid, a-minus, narrated by Vari Sylvester, produced by Brilliance Audio, downloaded from audible.com.Fiona Cameron is an academic psychologist who uses computer programs she has developed to help pin down the variables in situations when the police are looking for serial killers. The Metropolitan police in London did not follow her advice and badly screwed up a case, bringing a man innocent of that crime to trial and then seeing the jury let him go. Fiona does not intend working for the Met again, but then friends of her lover, Kit Martin, a famous writer of serial murders, receives a threatening letter, as do several other authors of serial murders, and when those authors start turning up dead, killed in ways as close to their own serial murder plots as possible, Fiona must become involved-ultimately to save her boy friend. Underlying all of this is the fact that Fiona became a psychologist working with the police on crimes because her sister had been raped and murdered and the murderer was never caught. This is a very good book with several twists and turns. One of Val’s best books. I do have to say though that her books include a larger than average amount of horrific graphic murder scenes.
What do You think about Killing The Shadows (2006)?
The multi-layered nature of this book is pleasing although I regretted there was not closer follow-up of the Spanish murders -we never did discover if Berrocal managed to pin the murders on his chief suspect. Although the book's main character is the profiler Fiona Cameron, rather than the psychology of the killers, the portrayal of the police feels closer to reality. Dedicated but fallible is probably the best way to describe them. Both Steve Preston and Sarah Duvall are portrayed as incredibly hard-working but sometimes mistaken, Steve when he didn't stick to his instincts during the first investigation of Susan Blanchford's murder and Duvall for too readily falling for Redford's confession. Then the sloppiness of the surveillance of Blake, failing to even suspect a back entrance, is alarmingly believable. Although on the one hand, Mc Dermid, underlines the advantages technology can bring to policing via Cameron's geographical profiling, she also shows that there remains a role for things that only people can do- or at least where they need to be the protagonists. The very layering of the story and the linkages between the different layers somewhat strain credulity but overall this is a gripping and satisfying read.
—Suzanne
I bought this book a few years ago but it never seemed like the right time to read it i.e. once I had it home, it didn't speak to me. I decided to read it to get it off my bookshelf and surprised myself with how much I enjoyed the author's writing, her sense of suspense as well as the, to me, surprise ending! A killer takes the books of suspense writers and then using the script, kills author after author. McDermid intertwines a few other mysteries in the book through the main character, Fiona Cameron, an academic psychologist who uses computer technology to solve serial murders. Fiona also happens to be living with one of the noted suspense authors whose life is threatened. The details, the suspense, the characters make for an excellent book.
—Sue
I enjoyed this thriller / crime story. It has three crime stories in one book, really, and the main story evolves into a thriller rather than a detective story. Fiona Cameron is the lead character - she is a psychologist who has worked with police in the past to do what she calls "geographic Profiling" of crimes, leading to detection of where and how a suspect may be living. She is not a psychological profiler, she tells us. As the book begins, she has sworn off working with the London Metropolitan Police, as they ignored her advice in a case, which then blew up in their faces. That case thus becomes the first one in the book. If it wasn't the person who was tried for the crime, who was it? Fiona grudgingly helps out to see if a new suspect can be found. She is then tapped by the Spanish police in Toledo to help in a series of murders of tourism-related workers; this involves a trip to Toledo and its interesting locales. But the main story revolves around a serial killer who is targeting crime writers, and killing them in ways that mirror the deaths in their books. The case starts out as a detective story, but as I mentioned, when Fiona's writer boyfriend is targeted, it becomes a race of life and death across the Highlands. I liked it a lot, though I prefer my detective stories to be more about detection than chase. But it was still good.
—Stuart
