The Last Temptation (Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, Book 3) - Softcover

McDermid, Val

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006514197 ISBN 13: 9780006514190

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

Synopsis

The Number One bestselling crime series featuring Dr Tony Hill, hero of TV’s Wire in the Blood, written by the award-winning Val McDermid. The hunt for a serial killer leads from Britain through Europe in this terrifying psychological thriller.

A twisted killer targeting psychologists has left a grisly trail across Europe.

Dr Tony Hill, expert at mapping the minds of murderers, is reluctant to get involved. But then the next victim is much closer to home...

Meanwhile, his former partner DCI Carol Jordan is working undercover in Berlin, on a dangerous operation to trap a millionaire trafficker. When the game turns nasty, Tony is the only person she can call on for help.

Confronting a cruelty that has its roots in Nazi atrocities, Tony and Carol are thrown together in a world of violence and corruption, where they have no one to trust but each other.

About this title

Review:

Val McDermid just gets better and better. The Last Temptation is intelligent about undercover police work and psychological profiling as well as moving on the human cost to the people who have to do society's dirty work.

We are back with profiler Tony Hills and super-competent cop Carol, who we met in The Mermaids Singing and The Wire in the Blood. The couple's past experiences have created a bond between them as well as a certain inability to bear the sight of each other. They are brought back into co-operation by the needs of the job in its European dimension. Tony is persuaded to help track a European killer who drowns and mutilates psychologists, while Carol is working undercover to trap a drug trafficker whose dead lover spookily resembles her.

As always, McDermid writes brilliant criminals. She adds that deadening of sympathy which makes horror possible. Both aristocratic gangster Tadeusz and vengeful psychotic Mann have their reasons for being who they are, doing what they do. McDermid makes us care that her detectives succeed and survive just that little bit more than we care for her villains to escape. She writes excellent thrillers simply because she has a journalist's eye for both sides of each case. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

'Val McDermid is one of the few crime authors who can be convincing when it comes to 'writing tough' yet retain a powerful emotional insight... McDermid is doing something quite extraordinary with the crime fiction suspense thriller' Scotland on Sunday

'This is a hugely ambitious novel, involving three police forces, of which the British seem to be the most Machiavellian' Express

Praise for Val McDermid:

'Val McDermid is a roaring Ferrari amid the crowded traffic on the crime-writing road' Independent

'McDermid has become our leading pathologist of everyday evil... The subtle orchestration of terror is masterful' Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0006514197
• ISBN 13: 9780006514190
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416