Category Archives: Val McDermid

Review: Trick of the Dark by Val McDermid

Posted on
12

Having complained often and at length about authors who write the same book over and over again I chose to TRICK OF THE DARK up precisely because it was clear from the disparity of opinion about it that, if nothing else, McDermid had written a different book from her previous work. My main exposure to her writing has been through the Tony Hill books which are a bit bloody for my taste though I do like her writing so I was keen to try more of her standalone novels.

There were lots of things I enjoyed about TRICK OF THE DARK though my relationship with the book didn’t start well as the main character, psychiatrist Charlie Flint, is angst-ridden about whether or not to cheat on her wife Maria with another woman. I groaned audibly I think as the ‘to cheat or not to cheat’ storyline is a particular annoyance of mine both in real life and in fiction (cheat if you must but don’t bend my ear about your vacillation is my motto). But even though that thread does run throughout the novel I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of this complicated and fast-paced book.

As well as considering embarking on an affair, Charlie is in professional disgrace as the book opens due to an assessment she had made in a criminal case. Although something of a side thread I found this quite fascinating as it explored the notion of guilt and whether or not people can or should be prevented by society from committing crimes they’ve only thought about. One morning she receives some curious news clippings in the mail about a murdered bridegroom she doesn’t know. After some plot contrivances she works out that the clippings have been sent by one of her tutors from her time at Oxford and the widower of the bridegroom is Magda, whom Charlie knew as Maggot when she used to babysit her some years ago. When she gets in touch with the tutor, Corinna, she is is asked to investigate Magda’s husband’s murder. Corinna doesn’t think the two people who have been found guilty of the murder were responsible, instead she blames Magda’s new love interest, a woman called Jay who is also a former student of Corinna’s and is now a very wealthy business woman. Corinna tells Charlie that if she does not investigate and find evidence of Jay’s guilt Corinna will do whatever it takes to protect her daughter from the woman she perceives as evil.

That’s about as simply as I can summarise the early part of the book and it gets more complicated from that point on but it’s surprisingly easy to follow. Though perhaps that’s just because McDermid has the skill to make such twists and turns look easy. The book does require the suspension of disbelief but I had no trouble doing that, quickly getting caught up in the whydunnit aspects of the novel and the lives of its three main characters.

In some ways I thought Charlie the least interesting of the three (though admit that’s mainly because I was bored by the whole cheating thread). Jay Stewart, whose point of view much of the story is told from, would be intriguing I think even if you weren’t always wondering in the back of your mind if she is a serial killer. She has already published one book, a misery memoir of her horrid childhood, to much acclaim and has been persuaded to write a second biography. This volume will focus on her more recent life of ‘triumph over tragedy’ and we learn about her life as she writes different chapters though readers are always aware of the unreliable nature of Jay’s ‘recollections’. It would be a terrific sign of society’s maturity to be able to write about this book without mentioning that the three main characters (and several minor ones) are lesbians but the women’s sexuality is a significant factor in the stories. Their various experiences of coming out (or not doing so) and being on the receiving end of homophobia significantly colours the lives of all the lesbians in the story and so is an integral part of the book. Unlike some of the more vitriolic reviews on Good Reads and Amazon I thought this aspect of the book was handled sensitively and intelligently.

TRICK OF THE DARK managed to draw me into subjects and worlds I have no experience of including the cloistered atmosphere of Oxford college and its lingering pull on all who attend, as well as the tribulations of being gay and hated for that fact (in my bubble world I like to think we’re all grown up about such things now but clearly not). Having had somewhat ambivalent expectations of this book through reading very positive and very negative reviews I was pleasantly surprised and would recommend the book to those who can suspend their disbelief in the interests of a ripping, and thought-provoking yarn.

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TRICK OF THE DARK has been reviewed at Crime Scraps, Euro Crime, Euro Crime (2), Petrona and Savidge Reads

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My rating 4/5
Author website http://www.valmcdermid.com/index.html
Publisher Hachette Digital [2010]
ISBN 9780748117017
Length 362 pages
Format eBook (ePub)
Book Series standalone
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Review: The Torment of Others by Val McDermid

Posted on
11

The fourth book in Val McDermid’s successful series featuring psychologist and profiler Tony Jordan and DCI Carol Jordan opens with Jordan on extended leave following the events that took place in the previous book. She is approached to head up a new squad based at her old station in Bradfield which will focus on high profile cases and, when there aren’t any of those, will look at cold cases. Just as they receive a break in a recent cold case involving two missing boys a new murder requires the team’s immediate attention. A prostitute has been brutally tortured and murdered in exactly the same way as several women murdered two years previously. The only problem is that irrefutable forensic evidence convicted a man for those murders and he’s still locked up, having not spoken a word in two years.

I don’t know if the violence in some crime fiction has gotten worse or I have simply had my fill but I just don’t want to read another graphic description of the brutal rape, torture and murder of women (and it is almost always women). Is it not enough for the plot that a woman is raped and murdered? Is a story really made better by having a razor-blade impregnated object used for the purpose? Does each murder really need to be more bloody, more awful, more unimaginably painful and degrading than the last? For this book anyway the answer to that question seemed to be yes.

The worst thing is that not only did the violent depictions and language add nothing of value to the book but they weren’t in place of decent plotting and characters as would be the case with lesser writers The plot is cleverly constructed with all the threads being kept active at the right pace. There was a good balance of story advancement and personal interactions between the team members and the relationship between Carol and Tony Hill is now so fraught with emotional problems on both sides that it could generate a book of its very own. The razor-blade rapes and crude language detracted from these elements in the same way that people who swear constantly lose any capacity to underline a particularly strong emotion or point with a single well-placed curse word.

What about the audio book?

Vari Sylvester is a terrific narrator and because she is female I didn’t keep forming an image of Robson Green as the character of Tony Hill which I did when I listened to an earlier book in this series narrated by a man.

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My rating 2.5/5
Author website http://www.valmcdermid.com/
Narrator Vari Sylvester
Publisher ISIS Audio Books [2004]
ISBN N/A
Length 13 hours 54 minutes
Format audio CD
Book Series #4 in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series
Source Borrowed from the library