Customer Reviews

Fever of the Bone

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

'FEVER OF THE BONE' is the sixth in Val McDermid's series about DCI Carol Jordan and criminal psychologist Tony Hill. At the same time as I as reading this novel, I was viewing 'Wire In The Blood', a British series covering Val McDermid's books. McDermid's novels can be very realistic and gory, but the DVD is even more so. This was a story that will not be forgotten easily.

The main plot concerns the deaths of young teenagers in the town of Bradfield in northern England. DCI Jordan and her team are looking for people who stalked them by befriending them on a social networking website, RigMarole. Someone lures the young person to a meeting, and then kills them. The children's parents are bereft, and their love is palpable. We can put ourselves in their place very easily. DCI Jordan's cold case team discovers clues, and also follows the internet trail. DCI Jordan's new boss, James Burke, will not allow Tony Hill, who profiles the criminals, on the case. Instead, Burke tells Jordan to make do with one of the police force's own profilers. This profiler is not in the same league as Tony Hill is, and the clues run out very quickly. DCI Jordan finds she is on her own.

Meanwhile Tony is sorting out his father's estate in Worcester. He did not know his father, and his death came as a shock. At the same time, Tony is contacted by the Worcester police to assist with the case of a killing of a young teenager. Tony takes on the case and spends the night in his father's old house. He discovers unexpected things about his own past. Many things that his mother, from whom he is estranged, has kept from him.

DCI Jordan and Tony are involved with each other but can't admit their feelings openly. This aversion to discussion of feelings has been an on-going issue for the two of them. Tony discovers his profile case in Worcester is likely to be a crime committed by the same person who killed the two teenagers in Bradfield. DCI Jordan insists that Tony Hill be allowed back on this case. DCI Jordan and her team narrow down the list of suspects, and come to some amazing discoveries.

Val McDermid keeps the story interesting with her use of high tech options in combination with the new social media. She seems to be way ahead of other authors in this area. The police procedurals are explicit and so well written. The story of Tony's discovery of his father is moving, and this may open the door to a more satisfying relationship with DCI Carol Jordan.

Recommended. prisrob 09-16-10

The Mermaids Singing

Beneath the Bleeding: A Novel

"It all comes down to blood in the end. Some wrongs you can get past....But certain kinds of betrayal need to be answered. And sometimes only blood will do."

Those are just a few of the chilling words we read in Val McDermid's introduction to what this reader considers to be her best work to date. With FEVER OF THE BONE, the sixth Tony Hill novel, we meet a new chief constable, James Blake, who is evidently little impressed with Hill's contributions. Of course, this leaves Carol Jordan right in the middle.

However, the middle might be the safest place to be as Carol and Tony are faced with their most demonic adversary yet. The first victim is young Jennifer Maidmont, so viciously attacked that her body was described as "sexually obliterated." There was no reason in the world for this vile act. Jennifer was a well cared for girl, pretty, sensible.

Only later is it found that the killer is apparently choosing his victims at random after befriending them on the latest and most popular social networking site for teens. Not satisfied with one victim the psychopath continues his sick spree of murder and mutilation.

Leave it to McDermid to carefully weave events together until a pattern emerges - compelling reading! There is, of course, as before the emotional relationship between Carol and tony to further hold readers spellbound.

Val McDermid is a seasoned award winning author at the top of her game. Enjoy as she leaves us waiting for the seventh in this estimable series.

- Gail Cooke

The sixth installment of Val McDermid's Tony Hill/Carol Jordan police procedural series FEVER OF THE BONE is a very exciting and page-turning hunt for the serial killer of fourteen-year olds who've been tortured and sexually mutiliated in northern England. All the victims are enticed through emails on RIGmarole, a British social network. Tony Hill is a famous psychologist and criminal profiler. Carol Jordan is, at the time of this story, DCI of the Murder Squad at the Bradfield Metropolitan Police.

McDermid is no slouch to modern police investigative methods. The hunt for Bradfield's latest serial killer involves excessive internet search (by a member of Jordan's squad, Stacey, who's hand-wired to her computer), an excursion into the world of artificial insemination (whose data sources are harder to get into than a Swiss bank account), and a geographical profile gadget called the Landsat Enchanced Thematic Map Planner.

And quickly becoming an iconic trademark, the author introduces a few new and interesting characters into the story:

James Blake, the new Chief Constable of the Bradfield Metropolitan Police
Angela Forsythe, an svelte attorney, with a desirable Bradfield address - a converted 1920's cigarette factory
Derek Baron, an illegal egg collector, who searches for valuable red kite eggs
Alvin Ambrose, a young policeman with ambitions from the neighboring Worchester Police Department
Warren Daly, a cyber-know who's a software security expert and owns his own company
Tim Parker, the young and green profiler, chosen by Blake to assist the investigation..."cheap over good"
and, of course, the teen victims: Jennifer, Seth, Daniel and Niall

The author also more fully explores the personalities of her main protagonists. Tony Hill finds his father when he acquires his estate. The relationship between Hill and Jordan in solving crime has always been more successful than their great friendship. A British newspaper states that McDermid pushes our pleasure buttons with this duo. "Hill and Jordan's 'will they, won't they' is one of the most intriguing in the crime field..."

Faithful readers from THE SINGING MERMAIDS forward will discover some nice dialogue about this relationship! It's about time but it's still not enough!

I am a huge fan of the Tony Hill series. This author dos not disappoint. There are lots of plot twists and a rewarding ending. I am anxiously awaiting her next in this series.

This is the 6th book in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series. This one primarily deals with internet stalking.

The internet stalking issue is a realistic threat that we hear of in the news and I am glad McDermod has researched this topic and brought it into focus in one of her books. What better way to do so than with using her master profiler, Tony Hill?

In this book, Jordan is dealing with a new boss who feels that cost containment is more important than using top talent to track down a serial killer. This comes at a critical time as teenagers are being killed and Jordan's team needs to find out why this is happening, and fast. To Jordan's dismay, she is forced to use new, inexperienced talent for profiling.

It also deals with Tony's discovery of his father, of whom he knew little, and the resolution of a cold case murder of a young wife and child.

This is definately a book worth reading. The plot is solid and the ending contains a bit of a surprise.

First of all, Tony Hill is a great character. A well rounded character, who you can identify with even when he's doing things that unsettle you. I like Val McDermid's style of writing. Very slick, fast paced and realistic sounding dialogue. You really feel you can hear the character's voices in your head, whether before or after the reading process. Maybe I saw the ending coming a bit earlier than the writer would have wanted, but hey, it was still an exciting read. I read it in only three sittings!

In Bradfield, England someone is using the social networking website RigMarole to meet teens in person before killing them; two victims so far. The hot case police make little progress with their investigation. However, Cold Case team leader DCI Carol Jordan and her unit find clues. She asks her new boss to allow her to use profiling expert Tony Hill, but James Burke says he is too expensive so they use an in house profiler.

Tony recently inherited the large estate of his late father, who had abandoned him as a baby. He travels to Worcester to sort through what he was bequest. The Worcester police department hires him to profile a murderer who killed a teenager. Carol cannot discuss her case with Tony, but soon they realize that in all probability the same predator murdered the teens in Bradfield and Worcester.

Although the police procedural elements are superb, the strength of the latest Hill-Jordan thriller is in the personal lives of the parents of the victims and the profiler. The parents struggle with their loss as they are good people coping with a tragedy that they thought they could prevent by warning their children not to socially in person meet strangers who seem friendly online. Tony tries to understand the father he has spent a lifetime hating and encouraged by his mother to do so; fans will hope he moves on to the next level with Carol. With a strong Internet social network whodunit and personal subplots, Fever of the Bone is a winner.

I really like Val McDermid's books. Even if I find them to have flaws, I enjoy reading them. This is the first I've read for a while, having overdosed on her a few years ago. I found I was glad to go back.

This isn't one of her best, and it seems as though it were primarily written to move Jordan/Hill to some new places (emotionally & geographically). I figured out the link with the killings really early on. It seemed so obvious to me that it took a great deal of the wind out of the rest of the plot. Perhaps I was supposed to figure it out? But then why?

Also, there were quite a few plot holes. Serious ones. The MO of the killer has some big issues, that I can't go into without spoilers. Suffice to say that watching mystery writers take on social networks often reminds me of the period when Christie and Marsh were trying to write about 1960s drug culture. There were too many feints and red herrings throughout the book.

But you know what? Even with all this I still liked the book, and had fun reading it. Go figure.

I enjoyed this audiobook. The story is well written & the interaction between the psychologist protagonist & the lead detective was interesting. I recommend this book for detective story enthusiasts.

As with the Harry Potter books, it's better to read from the start of the series than jump in at the middle. I read Fever straight after Beneath the Bleeding, and there are many references to incidents in earlier books which don't make a lot of sense to someone who just picks up one book. I'm a fan of the Tony Hill books - I loved the TV series and Robson Green is Tony Hill for me.

This book has an exciting plot or 3, definite character development for the people we know, and some interesting new characters. Plus the usual tension between Tony and Carol. There are a few plot holes or areas that don't quite ring true, but they didn't spoil it for me. And also, like at the end of HP and the Half Blood Prince, I can't wait for the next book to see what happens next.